A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there.
A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.
All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.
Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.
Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.
Ask any dark-skinned sister with short hair: She's having a hard time because she's not getting the type of play the light-skinned sister with long hair is getting.
Does it negate that horror to say, Well, at least Hitler's not alive now?
Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest.
Everything I do is always scrutinised. But that's all I'll say about that.
Fight the power that be. Fight the power.
Great crews here. All the technicians, all the artists that work in this industry. I've just been very happy with the body that we've been able to do, especially those films we shot here in New York City.
I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.
I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.
I don't really analyze my stuff when I write. I write about stuff that I'm interested in, that I'm feeling at that particular time. When I stand back and look at the complete work, I might see themes that run through the whole film, but I'm not really conscious of it when I'm doing it.
I don't really think color comes into this film.
I get offered to do stuff where the money's nice but it's not something I want to do-I get offered a lot of commercials too.
I just hope that people talk. There's a lot of stuff to chew on with this movie and it's been pretty evident so far that people come out of the theatre really debating, discussing, and exchanging ideas about what they've seen.
I just think that the unions realize they have to be more flexible. The people that live here want to work here, but if it's cost-prohibitive, people go elsewhere.
I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.
I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I'm a New York filmmaker.
I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.
I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.
I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive.
I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.
I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.
I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.
If there's anything New York produces in basketball, it's point guards. So if you don't have somebody here to run the point, and everybody knows that's what we do, if anything, it doesn't make sense to me.
If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
It didn't surprise us that Kings of Comedy has done so well. We were trying to convince Paramount from the beginning that the film would be a hit. They got it eventually, especially for the price it cost, only $3 million.
It's not that type of film. We're not trying to glorify David Berkowitz.
My cousin Malcolm Lee is also a filmmaker.
On the whole, talking to my friends and knowing men, I see that a premium is put on light-skinned sisters with long hair.
People are going to focus on whatever they're going to focus on. I'll say this though; I think that the hardline lesbians are not going to like those last scenes at all.
People say I only talk to light-skinned women. It's not the case, but color has always played a role, and is going to. No, I don't think light-skinned women are more attractive, I don't think dark-skinned women are more attractive. it depends on the person to me-attractive is attractive.
Right now a lot of people are still choosing to go to Toronto instead of shooting in New York City, something I haven't done and something I hope I'll never have to do.
Since the days of slavery, if you were a good singer or dancer, it was your job to perform for the master after dinner.
The script I read was done before September 11th. For me the big decision was how to implement September 11th into the film. We did not want to appear like it was appended or anything like that. It had to feel organic, like it was there from the beginning.
There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.
There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.
Too many people are being bowled over by Bush and Tony Blair in Britain. It's ludicrous to expect the whole world to follow what they want.
Violence is a part of America. I don't want to single out rap music. Let's be honest. America's the most violent country in the history of the world, that's just the way it is. We're all affected by it.
We decided to use digital video because we were dealing with the medium of television, and it gave us that video look. Plus, we didn't have a lot of money, and many pages to shoot, and needed a lot of cameras to cover the show, when we were doing the numbers.
We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it's not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts.
We knew we wanted to cast real rappers, but rappers who had something to say. So that's why you go to people like Mos Def, Canibus, and MC Serch. They understood exactly what it is. I like rap, it's just that gangsta rap I can't get with.
We shot in PAL, because PAL gives you better resolution when you blow it up to 35mm. It was a learning curve, as we'd never shot basically a whole film like that. The stuff you see, we shot in Super 16, to get a different look.
We're the most violent nation on earth. There's no getting away from that. But you've got to look at it on a broader level.
We've always been proactive in having mentoring programs, having internships, trying to work with the unions so they can encourage more people of color getting into them.
What Clinton did with Monica Lewinsky does not add up to Bush lying to the world, saying, Let's invade Iraq because they've got weapons of mass destruction. It just doesn't add up. The man cheated on his wife, but nobody died. Americans are not coming home in body bags because of that.
Spike has also worked on the following artist's music videos: Chaka Khan, Bruce Hornsby, Naughty By Nature, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Public Enemy, Fishbone, and Arrested Development.
Spike is known for almost always having a role in his films, ranging from a cameo to supporting cast.
Spike has authored six books on the making of his films; the fifth book
Spike was criticized for encouraging young black students to skip school and go see his movie Malcom X. Ten years later, after headline-grabbing remarks made by Mississippi Senator Trent Lott regarding Strom Thurmond's failed attempt at the Presidency, Lee ranted that Lott was a 'Card carrying member of the Klu Klux Klan' on ABC's Good Morning America.
Spike has a production company called '40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks', a recording studio, and 'Spike's Joint', his retail outlet that includes merchandise that is associated with his films.
Spike makes his films about people and places, examining race relations, the role of media in contemporary life, urban crime, poverty, and political issues.
Spike was in the center of controversy after he directed the commercials for Nike, when violence broke out in inner cities involving the killings of young men for their Air Jordans. He called for a change of the conditions that made a kid put so much value on a pair of sneakers.
Spike's second big screen feature also launched the careers of a few young black actors, in School Daze. The project was highly profitable for all involved, and garnered exposure for the new faces.
Spike started to work on his first feature film, She's Gotta Have It in 1985. The budget was a slim $160,000, and shooting was finished up in two weeks. The film was released in 1986, and grossed over $7,000,000 at the United States boxoffice.
Spike took film courses at Clark Atlanta University, and graduated with a B.A. in Mass Communication from Morehouse College. He then enrolled in New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1982, with a Master of Fine Arts.
Spike was born Shelton Jackson Lee in Atlanta, Georgia to Bill, a jazz musician and Mary, a school teacher who nicknamed him 'Spike'.
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