Spike Lee's 1989 film Do the Right Thing uses vivid cinematography and a complex ensemble cast set against the backdrop of racial tensions in Brooklyn to tell the story of one hot summer day. The film explores issues of racism in a nuanced way through characters like Mookie who bridge the black and white worlds. Through its confined setting, characters, and buildup of tension, the film has been compared to a classical Greek tragedy. It sparked much discussion upon release and continues to do so today regarding racism in America.

1. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
Study Guide: “Do the Right Thing” (1989)
Universal Pictures / 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks
Written, Produced and Directed by Spike Lee.
Cinematography by Ernest Dickerson. Edited by Barry Alexander Brown.
Music by Bill Lee. Production Design by Wynn Thomas.
Starring Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, John
Turturro, Robin Harris, Sam Jackson, Rosie Perez, Martin Lawrence
“The best film of the year is not even nominated, and it’s Do the Right Thing.”
Kim Basinger at the Academy Award Ceremony that named “Driving Miss Daisy” the
best picture of the year.
“Anyone who thinks we move in a post-racial society is someone who's been smoking crack.”
Spike Lee
BACKGROUND – The history of African-Americans in the film industry is complex,
troubling, and inspiring. When director Spike Lee made his inaugural feature, “She’s
Gotta Have It,” in 1986, he was swimming with the tide of the low-budget independent
film movement of the 1980s, initiated by Lee and filmmakers Jim Jarmoush, Joel and
Ethan Coen, Steven Soderbergh and John Sayles, filmmakers who forced their creations
into being through sheer will power with little money and no industry support. Building
on the relative success of independent black cinema after the fall of the Hollywood
Studio System’s crushing dominance of film production, both Lee and Robert Townsend
cobbled together their first features in 1986. They stood on the shoulders of filmmakers
like Melvin Van Peebles (“Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” 1971), Gordon Parks
(“Shaft,” 1971), Gordon Parks Jr. (“Superfly” 1972), and Charles Burnett (“Killer of
Sheep” 1973/77), who had birthed a black film industry following the Civil Rights
struggles of the 1960s. There had not been a coherent black film industry in the United
States since the silent era, when filmmakers like Oscar Micheaux produced films largely
in reaction to the racism of “The Birth of a Nation.”
Essayist Matthew Dessem has noted that, in the late eighties, such films as “Glory,”
“Mississippi Burning” and “Driving Miss Daisy” suggested that to make a successful
movie about race in America, these were rules that needed to be followed:
 Make your main characters white. You may remember Denzel Washington or
Morgan Freeman as main characters in Glory, but you're wrong: it was Matthew
Broderick.
 Spend as little time as possible with non-white characters outside of their
interactions with your white protagonists. Think of Driving Miss Daisy: What did
Hoke do on his day off?
 Always, always remember: racism was a historical phenomenon, largely confined
to the South, overcome many years ago by heroic white people on behalf of
grateful African-Americans.
Spike Lee and other African-American filmmakers proved that effective and even
successful movies could ignore these tenants. What does the recent success of “The
Help” say about these characteristics in today’s film industry?

2. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
As a film, Do the Right Thing is a study in how cinematography can effectively add credence to
plot and characterdevelopment. The film's sensual details, such as the hot, sticky, suffocating
heat of a summer day, are visually stunning.
Cynthia C. Scott
"I remember seeing Lawrence of Arabia when I was a kid. I must have visited the Coca Cola
stand three times before the film was over. I wanted that effect for Do the Right Thing."
Cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, on depicting heat in “Do the Right Thing”
STYLE AND TECHNIQUE: Spike Lee and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson use
every cinematic technique at their disposal to reveal character, create a tangible setting,
steadily build tension, and suggest the stifling heat of the hottest day of the year.
 Color: The striking color palate has been compared to the work of revered
cinematographer Jack Cardiff, who photographed such film as “A Matter of Life
and Death,” Black Narcissus” and “The Red Shoes.” Vibrant colors are used
throughout the film to suggest physical and psychological heat. What colors
accomplish this, and how are they used? Notice examples where Lee and
Dickerson place lit cans of sterno just below the lens to create visible waves of
heat in the foreground. What other techniques lend a sense of heat.
 Location: Although studio executives hoped Lee would film “Do the Right
Thing” in Los Angeles, he insisted that it be filmed on location in the boroughs of
New York, specifically Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, and the studio
acquiesced. Lee filmed almost the entire movie on a single block. Only the
striking opening credit sequence featuring Rosie Perez suggests a studio
environment with its expressionistic lighting and backdrop. How does Lee and
company use the location to lend weight to the story?
 Lenses: Lee and Dickerson make particular use of wide and telephoto lenses. As
the movie progresses, an increasing use of telephoto lenses flattens perspective
and adds a sense of claustrophobia leading up to the climatic confrontation. There
is one subtle use of a dolly-zoom in the film. Can you find it?

3. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
 Angles: Notice the consistent view we have on Radio Raheem. What is Lee
trying to communicate about the character, and our assumptions about the
character as film viewers? Also note the use of angles in scenes of confrontation,
such as the one between Buggin’ Out and Clifton, or between Buggin’ Out, Radio
Raheeem and Sam. How do angles contribute to the relation of one character to
another?
 Sound: How does the soundscape created for the film adds to character and
tension? Notice particularly the volume of the various levels of sound in the
confrontation in the pizzeria, and its crescendo into violence.
 Characters addressing of looking at the camera: Usually, it is axiomatic that
characters in a movie ignore the camera, as if it were not there. When characters
acknowledge the camera, and therefore the audience, it is referred to as ‘breaking
the fourth wall.” This is a reference to a typical stage and sometime film set
comprised of three walls and an invisible ‘fourth wall’ that is assumed to exist.
We see this most clearly when Lee has several of his characters spew long strings
of racial epithets right at the camera, and therefore the audience. Lee also makes
extensive use of POV (point of view) shots, that also allow for characters to
address the camera, but these times as if through the eyes of another character.
Radio Raheem’s Love/Hate monologue is so delivered, in a shot that begins
objective, and tracks to become Mookie’s POV. How does the use of these types
of shots make you feel as a viewer?
 Music: Most associated with “Do the Right Thing” is “Fight the Power,” a
reimagining by Chuck D and Public Enemy of an earlier Isley Brothers tune,
commissioned by Lee for the film. We hear this anthem about racism playing
from Radio Raheem’s boombox over and over again. But just as important is the
mood created by the more conventional instrumental score by Bill Lee, Spike’s
father and a respected jazz musician. Identify placement and uses of the score in
the movie and its impact.

4. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
 Lighting: Notice the use of lighting in the interior scenes, where it is used to carry
the heat of the street into the apartments and businesses. In Tina’s apartment,
warm sunlight breaking through the rotating blades of a window fan adds both
physical and sexual heat to her encounter with Mookie.
 Canted Angles: Lee and Dickerson make extensive use of canted angles to add
tension and compositional interest to a visually confined space. Identify specific
uses of these angles and their effect.
“Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He'd made a movie about race in
America that empathized with all the participants."
Roger Ebert
DRAMA:
 Characters: There are no obvious heroes or villains in “Do the Right Thing.” All
the characters are layered with traits both sympathetic and unattractive, lending
complexity to our relationship and opinion about them. If there is a main
character in what is largely an ensemble cast, it is Mookie, whom we follow up
and down the block as we meet the various characters. Mookie is likeable, but he
certainly has his faults. He appears as a bridge, a negotiator, a mediator between
the white and African-American worlds, which makes his actions at the end of the
film all the more complex, shocking, and ambiguous. Some critics (Lee claims
they are all white) focus on the question of whether or not Mookie ‘does the right
thing.’ What do you think? Is it possible that Mookie’s actions are a kind of
Rorschach test, in which interpretation says more about the viewer than the
filmmakers?
 Wake up: The film begins as Lee’s previous film, “School Daze,” ends, with the
words “wake up.” In this context, what does this mean?

5. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
 Classical unities: Some critics have observed that, while a groundbreaking and
taboo-smashing work, Lee has observed the classical unities of time, place, and
action as delineated by Aristotle, making it a kind of classical Greek tragedy. The
film takes place in one confined place, a single city block (unity of place) and in a
restricted period on time, just one day (unity of time). It also follows a confined
series of events that lead to convergence in a single action (unity of action).
There are even Greek choruses, characters who observe and comment on events,
in the persons of the three men who sit on the street and Mister Señor Love
Daddy, and wise elders, in the persons of Da Mayor and Mother Sister, all
characteristics of classical Greek tragedy. Aristotle and the Greeks felt these
conventions were important in telling a complex and important story. How do
these conventions impact “Do the Right Thing?”
 Love/Hate: Lee directly references a scene from an earlier film, “The Night of
the Hunter” (1955), directed by actor Charles Laughton (“Mutiny on the Bounty,”
“The Hunchback of Notre Dame”) and starring Lillian Gish (“The Birth of a
Nation”) and Robert Mitchum (“Ryan’s Daughter,” “Cape Fear,” “Out of the
Past”). In the film, Mitchum portrays a sinister preacher who has the word
“Love” tattooed on the fingers of his right hand and “Hate” on the fingers of his
left. He delivers almost verbatim the same speech that Radio Raheem delivers
regarding his brass knuckle rings. But where Mitchum’s speech reveals a
hypocritical darkness and menace, Radio Raheem’s reveals the somewhat
threatening presence to have a simple and loving heart. It’s a clear indication that
no one in the film can be judged by appearance, or presentation, that no one is a
simple stereotype. Here is the original from “Night of the Hunter.”
http://youtu.be/X20XIg38GcE. And here is a supercut combining the two.
http://youtu.be/G0DLTQQwDfc
AUTEUR:
“A Beginners Guide to Spike Lee Joints” http://www.avclub.com/articles/a-beginners-
guide-to-the-spike-lee-joints,88191/
The Angriest Auteur http://nymag.com/movies/profiles/19144/index1.html

6. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
“White people still ask me why Mookie threw the can through the window. Twenty years
later, they’re still asking me that. No black person ever, in 20 years, no person of color
has ever asked me why.”
Spike Lee
Birmingham, Alabama – 1963
“Do the Right Thing”
SOCIO-HISTORIC: 1983, Lower Manhattan: African-American graffiti artist Michael
Stewart is strangled to death while in police custody. 1984, Bronx: Elderly Eleanor
Bumpus is shot to death by the NYPD. 1986, Howard Beach, Queens: African-
American Michael Griffith is killed when he is hit by a car crossing the Belt Parkway. A
gang of about a dozen Italian-American teenagers, many with baseball bats, is pursuing
him and two friends after a racial altercation in a pizzeria. 1987, Wappingers Falls, New
York: Fifteen-year-old African –American Tawana Brawley claims to have been
abducted and raped by six white men, some of whom were police officers. 1989,
Bensonhurst: 16-year-old African-American Yusef Hawkins is shot and killed after he
and three friends are attacked by a crowd of baseball bat wielding Italian-American
youths. All these incidents inspire and inform “Do The Right Thing.” The film also, as
seen above, visually references earlier civil rights struggles. Lee reportedly wrote the
script in two weeks.

7. EMC / JOUR 3000 Introduction to Motion Pictures Edward Bowen
The obvious question here is what are Lee and company saying about America in 1989?
And what does it say about America in 1989 that several critics of the film worried in
print about the possibility or even probability that black audiences would riot after seeing
the movie?
Not long after “Do the Right Thing” ended with Mister Señor Love Daddy exhorting the
viewers to vote, David Dinkins, New York’s first African American Mayor was elected.
Barack and Michelle Obama saw “Do the Right Things” on their first date.
Additional Resources:
Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing : An Explosive Film That Continues to Spark Questions
About Racism in America
http://voices.yahoo.com/spike-lees-right-thing-explosive-film-that-29987.html
The Inside Story of Do The Right Thing
http://focusfeatures.com/article/the_inside_story_of__em_do_the_right_thing__em_
TCM on “Do the Right Thing”
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/359465%7C0/Featured-Films.html
Celebrating 100 Years of Black Cinema
http://www.theroot.com/views/celebrating-100-years-black-cinema-0
Spike Lee Speaks About “Do the Right Thing” at 20 http://thegrio.com/2009/07/04/do-
the-right-thing-turns-20/
The Criterion Contraption: Do the Right Thing
http://criterioncollection.blogspot.com/2010/03/97-do-right-thing.html
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW: SECRETS BEHIND THE MAKING OF “DO THE RIGHT
THING” http://madamenoire.com/213236/bet-you-didnt-know-secrets-behind-the-
making-of-do-the-right-thing/
Black Cinema http://www.greencine.com/static/primers/black-1.jsp
How I Made It: Spike Lee on 'Do the Right Thing'
http://nymag.com/anniversary/40th/culture/45772/
Do the Right Thing Filming Locations http://moviemaps.org/movies/9h
An Open Letter to Spike Lee: Did Mookie Do the Right Thing?
http://www.thesecondageblog.com/2008/06/open-letter-to-spike-lee-did-mookie-do.html
Children’s Hospital Makes Unexpected Tribute to Do the Right Thing
http://www.vulture.com/2010/10/childrens_hospital_makes_unexp.html
http://youtu.be/zTMR69hdrsk