Happy 60th Spike Lee

Today is the 60th birthday of Shelton Jackson Lee, better known as Spike Lee. His early works influenced me to become a filmmaker and I am a huge fan of his overall body of work.

I wrote more about his impact on me personally in the post Why I Donated to Spike Lee’s Fundraising Campaign

Aside from his film work what I think is great about Spike was that he has also made a career out of being a teacher. In 1993 he began to teach at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts in the Graduate Film Program. It was there that he received his Master of Fine Arts and in 2002 was appointed Artistic Director.

Before then he first started teaching with his books. In many of his early films Spike has written books about them and what it took to make them. I've read several and below are list of the books.

Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerilla Filmmaking by Spike Lee

Spike Lee wrote, directed and starred in She's Gotta Have It, the independent-film success story of 1986. Shot on a shoe-string budget of $175,000 in black-and-white 16mm, the film was made with Spike Lee's persistence and talent plus the help of family and friends. It grossed $8 million at the box office and proved to be a major hit with both critics and audiences. Now Spike Lee reveals how he did it, mapping out the entire creative and production processes-from early notebook jottings to film festival awards. Spike Lee's Gotta Have It is a unique document in film literature - it's funny, absorbing, and fresh as the hit film itself. (Goodreads)

Published October 1, 1987 by Fireside Books. I read this book, but then stopped. Read why via my Goodreads updates below

December 7, 2013 – Finished Reading

November 9, 2013 –

page 82

 22.28% "I think I'm stopping at page 100. This book is a WEALTH of information. I got this copy from the library. Must BUY a copy!"

November 9, 2013 –

page 76

 20.65% "I can't remember where I left off at so I'll start after the survey"

September 14, 2013 –

page 75

 20.38% ""At the beginning of Spike's Journal on 'She's Gotta Have It'. Very intriguing. I've never kept a journal while developing a film, but I do keep extensive notes. This is the page where he shares his Survey for women to flesh out his script and make it as accurate as possible." (page 75 of 231)"

September 1, 2013 –

page 20

 5.43% "After a long Foreword this page starts The Interview: Spike Lee with Nelson George November 21, 1986"

September 1, 2013 – Started Reading

Uplift the Race: The Construction of School Daze by Spike Lee, Lisa Jones

Spike Lee rises again. This time, he and Lisa Jones document his transition from struggling independent to mainstream filmmaker with the making of the Columbia Pictures film, School Daze. No longer working with a small cast and a painfully tight budget, Spike Lee and his crew find themselves working in a swirl of university politics, a cast of thousands, big musical production numbers and the not-insignificant pressures of coming up with a hit in the majors. He "uplifts the race" by demystifying the process of producing an entertaining commercial film that, at the same time, delivers a stinging - yet funny - critique on American culture. (Goodreads)

Published February 15,1988 by Fireside Books 

Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint

 by Spike Lee

The phenomenon of Spike Lee continues with this revealing and engaging look at his outstanding career, his creative process, and the screenplay for his dynamic movie Do The Right Thing. Spike Lee burst full formed into the screen world with his award-winning, commercially successful independent film She's Gotta Have It. In the few short years following this stellar debut he has established himself as a force to be reckoned with in the film industry and in American popular culture. This book reveals Spike Lee as a Hollywood iconoclast and gifted visionary and takes us though the dramatic sequence of events that brought the movie Do The Right Thing to fruition. It is a testimonial to his developing genius, written in the stingingly funny and informed language of Spike Lee. (Goodreads)

Published 1989 by Fireside Books. I read this book. Read my review below. 

 Do the Right Thing: A Spike Lee Joint by Spike Lee   My rating: 4 of 5 stars
‘Do the Right Thing’ is my FAVORITE “Spike Lee Joint”. Don’t know why it took me so long to get this book, but it did. Probably because I owned, and poured over all of the extras on the 2 Disc DVD. What more could I learn right? Turns out a lot more. Yes the DVD was very detailed, but much insight is to be gained in this book mostly curated from his journals while making DTRT.

For most of all of his early films, Spike Lee published an accompanying book. This was also mostly before DVDs with all of their commentaries and extras. Even back then it seems that Mr. Lee knew that other filmmakers like me were interested not only in his films, but the stories behind them as well.

Mo' Better Blues by Spike Lee, Lisa Jones

Documents the making of the movie Mo' Better Blues, a film that captures the lives and traditions of the great jazz musicians, in a volume that includes the film's script and production notes. (Goodreads)

Published August 15, 1990 by Fireside Books

By Any Means Necessary: Trials And Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X by Spike Lee, Ralph Wiley

The director of Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever describes the troubles he encountered while making Malcolm X, a film based on the life of the slain African-American leader. (Goodreads)

Published December 1,1992 by Hyperion. I read this book, read my review below.

By Any Means Necessary: Trials And Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm X by Spike Lee  My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I don’t even know why I bought this book about the film ‘Malcolm X’ (1992) but if you ever want to know how hard it is to get a film made in Hollywood ESPECIALLY a period piece epic, this is the book you should read. Even if you’re not that interested in how a movie is made, it is STILL an interesting read as a tale of “Trials and Tribulations”.

By Any Means Necessary is not just a means to piggyback on brother Malcolm’s famous phrase, but it crystallizes exactly the mentality Mr. Lee had in mind when making this film. To me the narratives in this book were just as engrossing as the film itself.

PS: For the record the famous quote is-
"We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary. ” — Malcolm X, 1965

ADDITIONAL

Read more of my posts about Spike Lee here