On The Conscience Of America
...Liz Farmer
Documentary Filmmaking
Prof. Gene Weis
May 1, 2002
In 1986, Spike Lee burst on the scene with his hit movie She's Gotta Have It. Since then, Lee has averaged a relentless production of nearly one film per year, in both fiction and non-fiction form. Lee is known for his resolve to stay true to his style and vision--no matter how controversial the results may be. Whether draped in praise or controversy, Spike Lee is arguably one of the most influential filmmakers of the twentieth century.
Lee's Georgia birth certificate reads his full name as Shelton Jackson Lee, born on March 20, 1957--the eve of the civil rights era. Although born in Atlanta, Lee grew up in Brooklyn, New York, an area that figures largely in his work as a filmmaker. Spike's parents raised their uncomfortably middle-class family of five in an all-white Brooklyn neighborhood, an environment that undoubtedly had an effect on his later films. Lee's awareness of his African American identity was established at an early age. His mother, Jacquelyn, instilled in her children a schoolteacher's enthusiasm for black art and literature. He was made familiar with classic artists such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay and revolutionaries like Marcus Garvey. His father Bill, an accomplished jazz musician, introduced him to African American jazz and folk legends like Miles Davis and Odetta, respectively. Bill is also a composer, and has scored the music to a number of his films. As a result, Spike and his siblings were raised in a very creative environment. Lee recalls being made to see Broadway plays such as The King and I, and how that affected him later on in life. "Now I could see that exposure was very important," Lee articulated in a 1996 speech, "even though I didn't know that that was what I wanted to do, even though I didn't want to see those plays, even though I did not...
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