Spike Lee

The nickname came from his mother. Jacqueline Lee taught art and Black literature, and she called her eldest son Spike when he was small. He was born in Atlanta on March 20, 1957, and the family moved to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in 1959. His father, Bill Lee, was a jazz bassist who recorded with Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin and Odetta, and who scored his son's early films. Lee took a degree in mass communication at Morehouse College in 1979 and a film MFA at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts in 1982, where his thesis film won a Student Academy Award. She's Gotta Have It, shot in two weeks for 175,000 dollars in 1986, took more than 7 million at the box office.

Do the Right Thing reached American theatres on June 30, 1989 — one Brooklyn block, one heat wave, a police chokehold outside a pizzeria, a fire. Several white columnists warned in print beforehand that the film might incite riots among Black audiences. It did not, and the warning says more about 1989 than the film does. The Academy gave it two nominations, original screenplay and supporting actor, and left it off the Best Picture list in the year Driving Miss Daisy won. Lee has been answering questions about that ever since.

The film ends with two quotations set against each other — King saying violence is never justified, Malcolm X calling it intelligence when used in self-defence — and adjudicates between them not at all. The refusal is the method. Lee argues the same way off screen. When Warner Bros. and the completion bond company halted Malcolm X in post-production in 1992, he put in 2 million dollars of his own salary and raised the rest as outright gifts from Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Prince, Janet Jackson, Magic Johnson and Bill Cosby, later convicted of sexual assault. He went after Quentin Tarantino over the racial slurs in Jackie Brown and refused to watch Django Unchained. He told Cannes that Clint Eastwood had made two Iwo Jima films without a Black soldier in either. Eastwood told him to shut his face.

The Academy gave him an honorary Oscar in 2015, presented by Wesley Snipes, Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. His first competitive one came four years later, Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, at a ceremony where Best Picture went to Green Book — a symmetry with 1989 that much of the industry named out loud. He and Monty Ross founded 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks in 1979, and it has produced every film he has made, more than 35 in all. He has taught at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts since 1993, holds tenure there and was made its artistic director in 2002. He is still courtside at the Knicks.

Spike Lee's life against the full span of the corpus — the fading end marks a life still in progress.

• She's Gotta Have It film
  Debut feature, shot in two weeks for 175,000 dollars 1986
• Do the Right Thing film
  Made for 6.2 million dollars, took 37.3 million, and ends without a verdict 1989
• Malcolm X film
  Denzel Washington in a 202-minute cut Lee had to raise private money to finish 1992
• 4 Little Girls film
  Documentary on the Birmingham church bombing, added to the National Film Registry in 2017 1997
• 25th Hour film
  Praised since for how it shows New York City in the months after the September 11 attacks 2002
• BlacKkKlansman film
  Grand Prix at Cannes and Lee's first competitive Academy Award 2018

• March 20, 1957 aged 0 Born in Atlanta, the eldest of five children of a jazz bassist and a teacher His mother, Jacqueline, taught art and Black literature and gave him the name Spike.
• 1959 aged ~2 The family leaves Atlanta for Fort Greene, Brooklyn He has kept an office in the neighbourhood ever since.
• 1979 aged ~22 Graduates from Morehouse College and founds 40 Acres and a Mule with Monty Ross The name comes from the Civil War field order promising land to freed families.
• 1983 aged ~26 His NYU thesis film wins a Student Academy Award Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, with Ang Lee as assistant director and a score by his father.
• August 8, 1986 aged 29 She's Gotta Have It opens in the United States A 175,000 dollar film that grossed more than 7 million and helped start the 1980s independent wave.
• June 30, 1989 aged 32 Do the Right Thing opens amid printed warnings that it will cause riots It caused none. Lee later called the predictions outrageous, egregious and racist.
• March 26, 1990 aged 33 Driving Miss Daisy wins Best Picture at a ceremony Do the Right Thing was not nominated for Presenter Kim Basinger said from the stage that the film was missing from the list.
• November 18, 1992 aged 35 Malcolm X opens at three hours and 22 minutes, the length Lee wanted Warner Bros. and the bond company had ordered a two-hour-15-minute cut. Private donations overrode them.
• February 24, 2019 aged 61 Wins Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman, his first competitive Oscar Best Picture went to Green Book. Asked whether that offended him, he said it was not his cup of tea.

• Malcolm X 1925–1965
  Civil-rights leader whose critique of racism and advocacy of Black dignity reshaped American political thought. filmed the life of
• Martin Luther King Jr. 1929–1968
  Baptist minister and civil rights leader whose nonviolent activism ended legal segregation in America. quoted against Malcolm X
• Denzel Washington b. 1954
  Academy Award-winning actor and director regarded as one of the greatest actors of his generation. directed in five films
• Oprah Winfrey b. 1954
  Media executive and talk show host who built a multimedia empire and became one of the most influential women in the world. rescued by
• Michael Jordan b. 1963
  Widely regarded as the greatest basketball player of all time, who became a global marketing phenomenon. rescued by
• Clint Eastwood b. 1930
  Actor and director whose Westerns and gritty dramas, from Dirty Harry to Unforgiven, defined American masculinity. publicly feuded with