Do The Right Thing has to be the best movie out of all the movies we saw so far. It is one that realistically portrays the tension between different ethnicities that spend time in the same area. Although E.B. White’s “Here is New York” stated that people are willing to tolerate their neighbors, this movie portrays what happens when people’s patience runs out. Director Spike Lee did a great job in blending the right amount of theatrics with reality. In addition, he does a good job in making the point he wanted to make in this movie. Throughout the movie, the camera takes us through scenes that show the chaos of the block: children running around, the noise of the neighborhood. This makes the movie seem realistic, however, the lack of cars in this movie also constantly reminded the audience that this was a movie. In other words, this movie was made to make the audience feel as though they are there, looking at the characters. The close ups and the camera angles place the audience directly in front of the characters. For example, when Radio was explaining the story of his rings that say “love” and “hate”, the camera was moved from giving the audience a side view of the characters to right inbetween Mookie and him. Thus the audience was viewing Radio from Mookie’s point of view. (I feel that Spike should have cut in between the takes, i.e. we would receive a side view of them talking and then he would cut to when the Radio was speaking in front of the camera and back.) Also, another example of how other characters view others is when Radio was buying batteries. Because he is taller than the Korean store owners, the camera shot him from below, making him appear frightening (which was what he probably looked like from the owners.) I also like the fact that Spike Lee did not add any drug dealers or any business deals that might distract us from the main purpose of the movie. This movie has a very simple plot line, but is very effective in showing the point of views of many different people and in showing how one tiny argument can escalate to people doing something they regret.
In this movie, there wasn’t much character development thus forcing the audience to just focus on the interactions between the characters. Spike Lee wrote this movie with characters that are very stereotypical, with characters in which their personality is shown through the first encounter the audience has with them. Also Spike Lee, to some extent, “blended” the ethnicities together. There was no real distinction of hate between the groups. For example, when Buggin’ Out told his neighbors who were African American that he wanted to start a boycott against Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, they laughed at him and turned down his offer to join him. (This is what made me think of E. B. White’s paper, the ability for people of different ethnicities, traditions, culture, to survive in a community together.) They had no reason to boycott Sal because he has done no one any harm; in fact a girl even stated that she “was born and raised in Sal’s”. These little incidents of Sal not having African American leaders on his wall of fame escalated (which is the main reason for Buggin’ Out’s boycott) and of Radio being forced to turn his music down led to a racial war. Once Sal was unable to deal with these two characters calmly, he said the n word. That conversation during the closing time when these three characters (Radio, Buggin’ Out, and Smiley) put enough gasoline in the fire to cause an explosion, which is exactly what happened.
The part of the scene after they burned down the pizzeria is the one that stuck out the most to me. When the people of the block (both the African Americans and Latin Americans) turned around to start to take out their anger on the store, I liked the dialogue that occurred. The lines that the Korean store owner said “I am black….we are the same” could not have been a clearer indication of what Spike Lee was trying to tell America. Through these lines, peace was restored again (for they laughed and said he is alright.) However this does raise the question, why were they blamed for something the police did?
