Spike Lee on His “Dream Project,” a Joe Louis Bio-Pic
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Listener supported. WNYC Studios. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard, in today for David Remnick. If you came of age watching Spike Lee movies, as I did, or joints as he likes to call them, you quickly became familiar with his public persona. He was ambitious, uncompromising, and outspoken, and as far as his critics were concerned, maybe a little too outspoken.

But Spike Lee was a groundbreaking voice, especially for Black audiences. For some of us, we got to see the richness and complexity of our lives portrayed on screen for the very first time watching his films. His 40 years of filmmaking include classics like Malcolm X and Do the Right Thing, several documentaries including a couple about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and recent favorites like Black Klansman and Defy Bloods. And he's still making movies destined to stir the pot.

The subject of his latest project? Former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Classic Spike Lee. David Remnick sat down the other day with Spike Lee at the New Yorker Festival. They began talking about Spike's father, bassist and composer Bill Lee, died at age 94 this year.

In his time, your dad was the bass player that everybody wanted to play with. It's an amazing thing. Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Aretha Franklin. He played on It's All Over Now, Baby Blue with one Bob Dylan, John Lee Hooker, everybody. First album, Gordon Lightfoot. First album by Simon and Garfunkel. He's on Puff the Magic Dragon. He's on bass with Peter, Paul, and Mary. So my father was the top folk bassist, but his bass, I mean, his thing was jazz.

And when Bob Dylan went electric, everybody went electric. And people wanted to continue to work with my father, but he didn't want to play electric bass. He wanted to continue playing upright. Yeah, upright. He was a traditionalist. So my mother, who every weekend used to shop at Bloondales and Saks Avenue, that had to stop.

Because there was no money coming into the house because my father refused to play electric bass. So mother had to work. She started teaching at St. Ann's in Brooklyn Heights. What was your relationship like with your father? It got complicated at times. Talk about that. Growing up and seeing the way my mother was working, coming home and cooking and cleaning for five crazy kids. And my father just be at this piano and just write music.

But it wasn't until later that I saw that, you know, this is his life. You know, he was not going to play music that he didn't want to play. It was great that we were able to work together. And that conviction he had, you know, I've taken a lot of that, that

Some things just can't compromise. What was it like to work with him on films? He did the music for, I don't know, several. He did all my student films, and She's the Habit, School Days, Do The Right Thing, and Mo' Better Blues. What happened was is that my father did not believe in technology. So when you're doing a score, all right, this scene, Daddy...

It's two minutes long. And only two minutes long, yeah. And we go in the studio. It's like, what are you doing? So that's when I had to bring in Terrence Blanchard, the great composer. Terrence Blanchard played with Branford Marsalis on School Days, on Do The Right Thing, and Mo' Better Blues. When you see Denzel playing, that's Terrence playing. You see, what's his nice playing horn? That's Branford Marsalis. Mm-hmm.

Mo' better blues. Well, tell me what it was like growing up in your house. Was the discussion of music and art at forefront? Anybody that's seen the film Crooklyn, that is autobiographical, so that was...

That was our house. What? Don't answer me, what? Turn the goddamn TV off. I don't care what it is. No TV at a school night. Mom, it's just a game. Who is that? It wasn't me, Mommy. We lived in a very artistic household. So thank God our parents were like, they said, whatever you want to do,

Just be good at it. So there wasn't like steer this away from the arts. I think a lot of times when it comes to the arts, parents kill their children dreams because art, you know, we're not spend all this money so you could make pottery, you know, or a poet or something. You know, you'd be a lawyer, doctor, whatever you want.

So it was just natural that we would be in art, but it wasn't drawn in our head. My mother was taking me to movies a little. My father hated Hollywood movies, so that was my mother's date. What would she take you to see? What first excited you on the screen? James Bond. My mother was a big Sean Connery fan. Loved James Bond. Who are you? My name is Pussy Galore. I must be dreaming.

Do you remember what movies started that were maybe a little higher on the food chain artistically than James Bond? Not that there's anything wrong with Goldfinger, but that you saw and you said, ah, that's something I might want to do. That didn't happen until college. I went to Marlowe's College in Atlanta, Georgia. I had to choose a major. So I chose math. And the occasions was film, TV, print journalism, radio. That takes in a lot of area. Yeah.

Mass communications. But film is what I feel film chose me, not the other way around. But, you know, if you want to be a writer, forget the economics of it, you need a pencil.

To be a film director, you need a whole bunch of other people. You need equipment. You need money. You need backing. And you need to be, to some degree, you need to be Napoleon. You've got to lead all these people. What in your personality drew you to being a film director as opposed to a novelist or a poet or a painter or whatever? Why did you express yourself through that? Because film encompassed all those things you just nailed, the new you just talked about.

I did my student films undergrad, and I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker, and I knew that that whole thing of driving out to L.A., flying to L.A., and working your way up from the mail room doesn't work for black people. So I'm going to go to film school. Yeah. And at NYU Film School, who were you listening to? What are you watching that's starting to...

startle you and help you become you? What are you watching and listening to? Everything. And that's, I really thank NYU Grady Film School for introducing me to world cinema because a lot of the great filmmakers, you know, even though I've seen some samurai films, I didn't know Curtis Sala made them. So the introduction, the world cinema, I know what the Hollywood stuff is, but once I was introduced to Hollywood,

Different ways of thinking, different ways of making film, not just the Hollywood system. I think A.O. Scott said that she's got to have it, and Jim Jarmusch's first movie really set off the independent film movement. For me, Jim Jarmusch is my hero because I checked that equipment to him. And so even though Scorsese went to NYU and Oliver Stone, they weren't there when we were there. So when someone you know...

You check equipment too. Makes it. Then it's doable. So tell me about breaking through. She's Got a Habit was made for $150,000? $175,000. Where'd you get the money? Well, I was doing crowdfunding before there was crowdfunding. I had a pen in hand, postcards, and a stamp. Remember postcards? When was the last time you licked a stamp? And I just sent postcards. Everybody knew.

to help me get money. But what we did was... In other words, you're hitting up your parents' friends? Anybody knew. Take me through the stages of getting from the imagination into a movie theater, and all of a sudden I go to a theater and I see, wow, this is something absolutely new. Well, it almost killed me. But I had great, great people around me who believed in this dream. One of my classmates, I went to John Dewey High School in Coney Island.

And his mother just died. And in insurance, he got $10,000. And he said, take it. I said, no guarantee, take it. And once the film became a hit, he bought a brownstone and four green. And is still collecting checks. And that film came out in 1986. So he got a brownstone, a very good, good, good, good price. He certainly did. And where does this story come from?

Had you been writing it? She'd have. Yeah, she's got it. She's got it. The concept really comes from Rashomon, the great film by the great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa where a rape happens and you see all these different characters get their version of that incident. And this is three, I want to flip it, so three men

speak to the camera and get their version of who they think Nola Dawn is, who's having a sexual relationship with all these three men at the same time. What about Nola Dawn? What do you want to know? I thought she was a freak. You know, freaky dinky. You ask why I can't stand to see her? I'm not crazy. I think your career exploded even more with Do the Right Thing. Mookie! What? How come you got no brothers up on the wall?

Man, ask Sal, right? Hey, Sal, how come you got no brothers on the wall here? You want brothers on the wall? Get your own place. You can do what you want to do. You can put your brothers and uncles and nieces and nephews, your stepfather, stepmother, whoever you want, you see? But this is my pizzeria. American Italians on the wall only. Take it easy, pal. And you, you.

Yeah, that might be fine Sal, but you own this. Rarely do I see any American Italians eating here. All I see is black folks. So since we spend much money here, we do have some sex.

By that time... That was my third film. Right, in 1980s. And by that time, was it a hell of a lot easier to get financing or were you finding Hollywood still a tough nut to break? It was easier, but I still can't get everything I want to make now. So, I mean, unless you're Spielberg or Christopher Nolan and they're not just going to give you a blank check. But I'm not complaining. I'm in my fourth decade now.

As a filmmaker, and I'm not slowing down, not stopping. You've talked in the past about racism in Hollywood and other institutions. Has that changed at all in Hollywood? And if so, to what degree? Well, there's many more people, people of color, that are working in Hollywood today in front of and behind the camera. But it's still not necessarily, you know, an even playing field. So the struggle continues.

Did you feel a special burden because there were so few visible black directors in the 80s? Is there a special weight on your shoulders in terms of representation? No, I thought it was a privilege because I was in a position to give people careers. I mean, a whole bunch of people came through 48 because in front of and behind the camera. And I remember we were getting ready to do Malcolm X and the Teamsters at that point.

Had no black teamsters. So I had a meeting with the guy. I'm not going to say his name. I said, you got to get some black teamsters. He says, we don't have any. Well, I said, you know what? Tomorrow the fruit of Islam is going to be driving trucks. But they found some black teamsters. They didn't want to mess with the fruit. Do the Right Thing was not nominated for Best Picture Award. And in the end. Danny got it for Best Supporting Actor. Yes, yes, indeed. Lost out to Denzel for Glory.

And I got it for a screenplay. Dead Poor Society. But it's not for Best Picture. Who knows what film won Best Picture that year? I do. Driving Miss Daisy. Driving Miss Motherfucking Daisy. What did you feel at that very moment? Well, let's move many years ahead. Black Klansman. We got nominated for Best Picture for that. But what film won that year?

What? Green Book. Yeah, I was like, damn, every time somebody's driving somebody, I lose. When you see one of your films visually, they're incredibly distinctive images.

That's not just me. That's the great cinematographer I've had to work over the years, too. So there's something called a double dolly shot? Double dolly shot. I did not invent it. Okay, so double dolly shot, for those of you who don't know, but if you saw it and I was smart enough to have a film of it, you'd know right away. It's when the center figure is kind of still and the background is moving very quickly and it's very disorienting. They're floating. Tell me about it technically and what are you using it for

What is it meant to do emotionally to the viewer? You see it in Malcolm X. I mean, it's in a lot of films. Ernest, again, Ernest Dickerson, my brother, fellow classmate, great cinematographer. We were young out of film school, so we're just doing film school-y shit and then showing off.

And then Ernest and I said, you know what? We're out of film school. We're out of NYU. If we use this shot, it has to make sense. It has to be motivated. True story. So we're getting ready to do Malcolm X. And I became somewhat friends with the late, great Dr. Betty Shabazz, Malcolm's widow. And she told me that she felt that her husband, Malcolm, knew he was going to be assassinated.

"When you went to the Baltimore Ballroom, you wanna be a model." So when she told me that, I said, "Ernest, man, we gotta find a place." So then it hit me. We have a scene where Malcolm, played by the great Denzel Washington, D, he's going to the Baltimore Ballroom. I said, "That's where we gotta do it." And then I said, "We gotta use that Sam Cooke song, 'A Change Has Come.'" And so that song, coupled with the circumstances,

and the double A shot is the best use of it so far that we've done. But we don't... When we do it now, it has to...

Be motivated. Sparingly. Yes. Sparingly. Are there any other signature moves that you've either used or abandoned or you think of as part of your film vocabulary? We have a lot of times where people speak into the camera. Double cuts where we repeat like we might have somebody. People hug, we might see them hug twice. Just try to be...

innovative with the camera and keep the camera moving and not just stand there. Do you find it harder as you get older to come up with new stories, new material, or does life keep coming at you hard enough so that the well is full? No, I have a wealth, a plethora of ideals. It's the money. You've got to finance that stuff. That's the big burden. Yes, and my dream project is...

A film called Save Us Joe Louis, which I co-wrote with the great Bud Shilberg. Bud Shilberg won an Oscar for On the Waterfront. Bud Shilberg is inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame as a writer. And I got to know Bud. He introduced me to Kazan. And Bud was at the two Joe Louis-Schmelin fights in Yankee Stadium. So this screenplay is about the relationship between

Joe Louis and Max Schmeling, who was not a Nazi, but he was on the tyranny of Hitler. In your vision of it, who would play those two actors, those two roles, Schmeling and Louis? I don't want to jinx it, but I co-wrote it with Bud, and for two years, Bud would call me every day. I mean, he was on his deathbed. He would call me, and what kept him alive was the idea that we were going to make this film together.

And he was like, Spike. You know, you read Bud? I knew him. Spike, did you get the money yet? I'm working on it, Bud. I'm working on it, Bud. So I made a promise to Bud on his deathbed. We're going to get this film made one day. Now, you've been doing a lot of documentaries. I was honored to have the privilege to briefly be in a couple of them, one about New York City and one that's forthcoming about Colin Kaepernick. And you do this thing. It's really...

Not disconcerting, but nerve wracking. You put somebody in a chair and the camera is about two and a half feet from your face. You were great. And you're saying, yeah, we'll see. Right now you're doing Colin Kaepernick. How many hours of footage do you have? Just interviews? Just over it. Yeah. Hundreds of hours. And it's going to break down to what? Five parts.

Of each an hour, each an hour and a half, an hour and change. So who sits there and goes through over and over? That's all you? How collaborative is that? No, what I do is that I look at the dailies with the editors, and then they go off and do what they got to do, and they show it to me. But you got to put the work in. You can't fake the fuck. And this documentary has taken a long time. Why is that? Story keeps going. He's not coming to the Jets, I hate to tell you.

He might not ever play again. This is the most important question I can possibly ask you. Why don't you organize a team to buy the Knicks? They're not for sale. Yeah, you could do it. And make them better because I got to tell you, I can't take it anymore. I don't know how you do this. We haven't won in 50 years. The last year was the 72-73 season. But we'll be good this year.

Why are we going to be good this year again? What did Brooklyn Faithful always say? Wait till next year. Well, this is the year. This is it. This is the year. From your lips to God's ears, I want to ask you some collaboration questions.

Denzel Washington, what is the quality that you find in him that and you bring it out in so many different films? Why is he as great with you? Not that he wasn't great in Equalizer 3, which I loved. Yeah, I got nothing to do with that. Denzel, in my opinion, is the greatest living actor today. You could feel his power, his sensitivity, his humanity.

And just the way he carries himself. Like, he's not fucking around. And if you're on the set, whether you're a boom, whatever, you're not doing your job, he's going to let you know. He lets you know? Yeah. How? Spike. That's good. That was good. But you know how I direct Denzel? All right, Denzel, what do you want to do next? All right. All right.

That's a great idea. Yeah, we'll do it. But he's the GOAT. You're going to do another one with him? I would love to. You got anything in mind? Not yet, but we're talking. Is he too old to be Joe Louis? Okay. Played Hurricane Carter. That's right. How long can you do this? You look at Scorsese's 80s. Kurosawa's 86. Yeah. I'm 66. Is that the idea?

I got at least 20. I got to get to Kurosawa. Gotcha. All right. Got to. Spike Lee, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you. David Remnick, give it up for David. Give it up for David. Filmmaker Spike Lee, talking with David Remnick at the New Yorker Festival.

And if you've been an admirer of Spike Lee's movies over the years, you're definitely going to want to check out what he considers the list of essential films. There are 95 movies on this list, and some of them are movies you would totally expect to see, like The Godfather and Raging Bull. And of course, there's a few Kurosawas on there as well. But there's some surprises too, movies like Mad Max and Kung Fu Hustle, if you can believe it.

You can find a link to Spike's list on our website, newyorkerradio.org. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come.

I'm Maria Konnikova. And I'm Nate Silver. And our new podcast, Risky Business, is a show about making better decisions. We're both journalists whom we light as poker players, and that's the lens we're going to use to approach this entire show. We're going to be discussing everything from high-stakes poker to personal questions. Like whether I should call a plumber or fix my shower myself. And of course, we'll be talking about the election, too. Listen to Risky Business wherever you get your podcasts.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm Adam Howard, sitting in for David Remnick, who's away this week. Believe it or not, there are things happening in the world of sports right now besides the budding romance of Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift. Seriously. The NBA season is starting, and there's a host of stories and subplots to delve into, even if you are not a devoted basketball fan. Although I definitely am.

So before this hour is up, I'm going to catch up with staff writer Louisa Thomas. She covers sports for The New Yorker, and I wanted to find out what, and most importantly who, she's watching this season.

Louisa, full disclosure, I'm going into this conversation a beleaguered and embittered Brooklyn Nets fan. So clearly my team is not probably going to contend for anything this year. But I am curious that somebody like myself who maybe their team doesn't have much going on. What are some stories?

storylines and personalities that folks should be, you know, keeping tabs on. You know, it's still LeBron James's NBA until he decides otherwise. You know, LeBron James even teased the idea that he might not come back. He was pretty worn out. He was fallible. He was fallible. He was human. Right. He's going to be turning 39 this year. That's right. Which in NBA world is sort of a senior citizen. Oh, he's the oldest player in the league.

He's not just old. He's the oldest. I know he used to talk about, like, lasting long enough to play with his son, Brawny. Do you think that's still something he's realistically hoping to do? Well, you know, that depends on a lot of things, not least Brawny. Brawny had a really...

cardiac arrest. He's set to play for USC. And who knows how that figures into James' play this season. He's actually dedicated the season to Bronny, but I haven't heard that kind of

talk from James or that kind of pressure, certainly. As someone who was recently 39, I wake up, you know, I wake up hurting for no reason. You know, he has done more than anybody in the game and, you know, as much as anyone in the history of sports, I will say, you know, to kind of

spend the resources to do everything he can to put his body in perfect condition. Who do you think is emerging as sort of the would-be heir apparent to his mantle as sort of the face of the NBA? I don't think it's fair to say that any person is the next LeBron James, just as it wasn't fair to LeBron James to say that he was the next

Michael Jordan. Um, but there are these kind of really thrilling, you know, stars in the league. But we haven't mentioned, I should say, we have not mentioned Nikola Jokic, who is this, um, the best player in the world. Oh, sure, sure. Absolutely tremendously weird, um,

Tremendous basketball player. He plays the Denver Nuggets. They are the... Serbian, right? He is Serbian. He's from a small town called Sambor. He is really into horse racing, harness racing, water polo probably. He's probably in water polo. I know that because he's on his water polo passes as part of his arsenal, which is incredible.

Everyone knows sort of to be ready at all times to catch the ball and shoot when he is coming up the floor. Yeah, when I watched the NBA playoffs last year, I can't remember the last time I saw a player who just seemed so dominant. And it was sort of just...

He was undeniable. Undeniable is a great word. You just kind of had to witness it. The word that people use in the NBA is heliocentricism. The idea is like there's a sun around which, you know, the other planets revolve. And so one player is sort of doing the bulk of the work. Someone like...

Jokic is actually, it doesn't show up in that stat for him because he's actually not a, you know, not a ball hog. He's actually really fun to watch because it's actually watching someone like with this kind of like galactic brain. And if you sort of just follow him, you know, you sort of start to see things that, you know, you've never seen before. So I think that's even true of a lot of people who have been in the game a long time. That's one of the reasons why Jokic is kind of an exciting player because he's sort of like opening new doors.

And that's exciting. And one of the players who's making their debut this season and is also being very hyped as potentially sort of a game changer in terms of the way we watch the game, play the game, Victor Wembenyana.

If I'm saying that name right. Yeah. Can you give us a little bit of background on who he is? Because apparently he's going to be a household name should he stay healthy. That's true. Well, always the caveat when we're talking about athletes. So he's this French kid, child. Yeah.

He's a child. He's a grown man. But he is a kid child man. And he is and he's still developing. So the first thing I'm going to say is that, you know, sometimes you hear the hype around him and you're like, whoa, he's going to be the MVP next year. You know, and he is, you know, it will be a surprise if he's an all star because he is really young and he is growing. And that's one of the most exciting things about him. He has this kind of just he has infinitely long arms.

And he is really, really tall. He's like over seven feet tall. And he can dribble. He can shoot off the dribble, which is really unusual for big men. He can play truly positionless basketball. You know, he is still sort of like learning how to utilize his skill. He's like, you know, one of these Swiss Army knife players who is like, do I use the scissors or do I use the nail file or do I use the knife? And the game is moving really fast. And so he's going to get tangled up sometimes.

And he's also very, very, very skinny. So sort of some people like... Yeah, I think you described him too as a noodle. He's a noodle. But, you know, he actually uses that to his advantage because he has this way to sort of... A way of sort of like slipping into these little spaces, even in the kind of crowd of paint and emerging, you know, up around the rim with the ball. And he sort of like has this kind of hyper agility, which is almost like... It's like there's this looseness to him, which is really fun to watch. As you may know, Spike Lee was on our show earlier. He's...

a lifelong Knicks fan. Our dear leader, David Remnick, is also apparently a Knicks fan to his long chagrin. There's so many Knicks fans out there somehow. Somehow. Is there any reason for them to hope that this year will be any different than the 50 years that have preceded it? I mean, like, what is hope exactly? I mean,

The New Yorker's Louisa Thomas. You can read her coverage of basketball and a plethora of other sports at newyorker.com. I'm Adam Howard. David Remnick will be back next week. Thanks for being with us. See you next time.

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Meryl Garbess of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell. This week's episode was produced with assistance from Catherine Sterling, Amanda Miller, Nico Brown, Michael Etherington, and others from the New Yorker Festival. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherena Endowment Fund.