Why does this not surprise me?
Spike Lee is to produce and direct a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for HBO, Variety reports. Provisionally entitled When the Levee Broke, early indications suggest it will continue Lee’s tradition of polemical films addressing the US’s fraught race relations.
Lee has never been one to shy away from controversy, with films such as Do The Right Thing, about a race riot in Brooklyn; Jungle Fever, taking a contentious look at mixed-race love affairs, and his eponymous Malcolm X biopic.
When the Levee Broke is currently waiting to go into production while Lee completes work on thriller The Inside Man, starring Denzel Washington, Jodie Foster and Clive Owen. But an interview earlier this week gave an early pointer to the line he is likely to take.
The poor, black neighbourhoods of New Orleans suffered particularly badly after the devastating hurricane struck at the end of August. During an appearance on CNN this week, to promote his memoir That’s My Story and I’m Sticking To It, Lee was asked about the conspiracy theories that the largely black Ninth ward of the city had been deliberately flooded by authorities.
He said: “I don’t put anything past the United States government. I don’t find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.”
The film will be Lee’s second documentary for the cable TV and film producer HBO. It follows 1997’s 4 Little Girls, which revisited the 1963 bombing of a black Alabama church that killed four children.
Hopefully he can finish this movie before the mother ship arrives to carry him away.
Funny how almost every one of the Media stories of horror that came out of New Orleans has proven to be false, but Lee still wants to talk about a myth. A myth put out by racists.
Imagine any white director making these kind of comments toward the black community and they would be ran out of town. But he still finds work. He makes comments like:
During the promotion of his film Jungle Fever, about a black/white interracial romance, the black filmmaker stated that he disliked interracial couples! Incredibly, he said, “I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.”
But still, he finds work. Not surprising in Hollywood, but still pisses me off.
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Hopefully he can finish this movie before the mother ship arrives to carry him away.
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