LEVEL Q
How Spike Lee Defeats Failure
On the eve of Netflix’s ‘Da 5 Bloods,’ the auteur discusses the Black experience in Vietnam, cultural literacy, and the art of losing
The streets on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are eerily free of cars and pedestrians on a lovely Sunday afternoon. The few locals you see are mostly middle-aged and white-haired. It’s a stark contrast to the scene just a few miles away in lower Manhattan, where the first weekend of youth-led George Floyd police brutality marches is underway. In the middle of a pandemic and the stirrings of global revolution, it feels appropriate to be sitting down with Spike Lee, an artist whose work and public statements have been part of the cultural conversation since the ’80s.
I’ve known Spike since 1983; I was an investor in his feature debut, 1986’s She’s Gotta Have It. Though he’s obviously evolved since we were both young men living in Brooklyn’s Fort Greene neighborhood, and in 2019 finally added a long-overdue Oscar to his shelf for his screenplay of BlacKkKlansman, Spike’s personality has been remarkably consistent — a mix of boyish exuberance and artistic aspiration that inspires his corny jokes, empathy for the abused, contempt for power brokers, and tenacious work ethic. His slight, wiry body camouflages a coiled…
