Washington, Mary H. Invented Lives. New York: Dou-
bleday, 1987.
Joyce L. Cherry
Lee, Spike (Sheldon Lee) (1957– )
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, as Sheldon Lee, the fu-
ture independent filmmaker was nicknamed Spike
when he and his family moved to Brooklyn, New
York. Only a few years old at the time of the move,
Lee would later use the ethnically diverse urban
environment as a cinematic canvas for a number
of his films. The most productive and well-known
African-American director at the beginning of the
21st century, Lee studied filmmaking at New York
University, where his student film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy
Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983), won him praise
and an agent. Through release of his first three fea-
ture films, Lee commanded the attention of main-
stream audiences, critics, and film scholars.
Lee’s first independent feature film, She’s Gotta
Have It (1986), moved him into a national spot-
light that would shine on him for the next 20
years. A stylized and controversial film, She’s Gotta
Have It follows a contemporary African-American
woman, Nola Darling, who leads a life of profes-
sional success and sexual independence. Critics
often compared her independent spirit to ZORA
NEALE HURSTON’s JANIE CRAWFORD in THEIR EYES
WERE WATCHING GOD.
Just as controversial was his second film, School
Daze (1988), a studio-backed project, which pre-
sents the issues of colorism and class within the
black community. In a more intense manner, Lee’s
third film, Do the Right Thing (1989) examines
more than 15 characters who intersect and clash
on a hot summer day in New York’s Bedford-
Stuyvesant neighborhood. Under the cautionary
rap of Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” the movie
forces a look into the manner in which race and
class erupt into biased attitudes and violent behav-
ior. These latter two films announced a topic that
would drive many of Lee’s projects—namely, the
politics of race in the United States.
An inextricable component of several films was
Lee’s effort to demystify the filmmaking process,
using companion books to encourage aspiring
film and video enthusiasts to understand the chal-
lenging steps in completing feature-length proj-
ects. Lee published Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It: Inside
Guerrilla Filmmaking (1987) and then co-wrote
and coedited, with Lisa Jones, the book Uplift the
Race: The Construction of School Daze (1988). Lee
ends that book by observing: “There’s a market
for black films, it’s proven.... [A]ll I want to do is
make films where my creative integrity is respected
and preserved. Where I’m in control” (329). The
book Do the Right Thing: The New Spike Lee Joint
(1989) added to the printing of viewpoints and
personal testimonials about the filmmaking pro-
cess, while the text By Any Means Necessary: The
Trials and Tribulations of the Making of Malcolm
X (1992), written and edited with Ralph Wiley,
shared the complications and rewards of complet-
ing that film.
Lee followed the movie Do the Right Thing with
noteworthy films that showed his own particularly
visual style and his commitment to exploring Af-
rican-American experiences. His impressive list
of productions includes Mo’Better Blues (1990),
Jungle Fever (1991), Malcolm X (1992), Crooklyn
(1994), Clockers (1995), Girl 6 (1996), Get on the
Bus (1996), the documentary 4 Little Girls (1997),
He Got Game (1998), Summer of Sam (1999), Bam-
boozled (2000), the concert film The Original Kings
of Comedy (2000), The 25th Hour (2002), She Hate
Me (2004), Inside Man (2006) and When the Levees
Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006).
His most ambitious and expensive film, Mal-
colm X, was funded through a combination of stu-
dio and private investors. More than three hours
in length, the film depicts the life of the celebrated
black human rights leader who rose to power both
within his Black Muslim religion and within the
black community, as recorded in his autobiogra-
phy, The AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MALCOLM X, written
with the assistance of Alex Haley. The film, which
starred Denzel Washington in the title role, chron-
icled the protagonist’s criminal past, his prison
time and religious conversion, and his political
activism and assassination. Lee viewed MALCOLM
X as a “hero” and “wanted to send young black
youth the message... that education and personalLee, Spike 311