Do the Right Thing

Do the Right Thing
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Spike Lee
Produced by	Jon Kilik Spike Lee Monty Ross
Written by	Spike Lee
Starring	Spike Lee Danny Aiello Ossie Davis Giancarlo Esposito John Turturro
Music by	Bill Lee
Cinematography	Ernest Dickerson
Editing by	Barry Alexander Brown
Studio	40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	France: June 14, 1989 United Kingdom: June 23, 1989 United States: June 30, 1989
Running time	120 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$6,500,000[1] (estimated)
Gross revenue	Domestic: $27,545,445[2] Worldwide: $37,295,445

Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American ensemble film produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee. The film deals with issues of racial conflict in the multi-ethnic community of Bedford-Stuyvesant, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, during the hottest day of the summer. Director Lee stars in the film, alongside Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and John Turturro. The film is also notable in that it marks the feature film debuts for Martin Lawrence, Tristan Lively, and Rosie Perez.

The film was a success at the box office, and received numerous accolades and awards. The film has grown in stature over time; in 1999, it was deemed "culturally significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry, one of five films to do so in its first year of eligibility. In 2007, the American Film Institute listed the film as the ninety-sixth greatest American Movie in Film History.

The song "Fight the Power" by Public Enemy is a recurring aural motif in the film, as blasted from a huge boombox toted by Radio Raheem (Nunn). It appears 15 times in the film.

Plot

This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (June 2009)

Do the Right Thing is set on a single street in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. The street is populated primarily by African Americans and Puerto Ricans.

The main character in the film is Mookie (Spike Lee), a young man who lives with his sister Jade (Joie Lee, Spike Lee's real life sister) and works as a pizza delivery man for the local pizzeria. Salvatore "Sal" Frangione (Danny Aiello), the pizzeria’s Italian-American owner, has owned the shop for twenty-five years. His older son Giuseppe, better known as Pino (John Turturro), "detests the place like a sickness" and holds racial contempt for the neighborhood blacks. Sal's younger son Vito (Richard Edson) is friends with Mookie, who is black, which Pino feels undermines their fraternal bond.

The street corner which the characters populate is filled with distinct personalities, most of whom are just trying to find a way to deal with the intense heat and go about their regular day-to-day activities. A philandering drunk called Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) is constantly trying to win both the approval and affection of the neighborhood matron, Mother-Sister (Ruby Dee). A young man named Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) lives for nothing else but to blast Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" on his boombox wherever he goes. He wears a "love" and "hate" four-fingered ring on either hand which he explains in one scene to symbolize the struggle between the two forces, a scene directly lifted from Charles Laughton's 1955 film The Night of the Hunter^{[citation needed]}. A mentally disabled man named Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) constantly meanders about the neighborhood, holding up hand-colored (with marking pens) pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.. The local radio disc jockey, "Mister Señor Love Daddy" (Samuel L. Jackson) rounds out the cast of characters.

Buggin' Out (Giancarlo Esposito) makes sure his points are heard by whoever is in ear shot. Upon entering Sal's shop, Buggin' Out questions Sal about the "Wall of Fame" and demands he place some pictures of black celebrities on the wall (since, he explains, Sal's pizzeria is situated in a black neighborhood and sells pizza to black people). Sal replies that it is his store, he is proud of his Italian heritage, and that he doesn't have to name anyone but Italians on his wall. Buggin' Out attempts to start a protest over the "Wall of Fame", but no one will support his protest except Radio Raheem, who got into an argument with Sal about playing his boombox loudly in the store.

Buggin' Out's own angst from gentrification comes to the front when he verbally attacks a white bicycler (John Savage), who accidentally bumps into him without apologizing and unknowingly scuffs his shoe. Buggin' Out begins to harass the man (disregarding the man's apology), telling him to "go back to Massachusetts" (because the man was wearing a Larry Bird Boston Celtics jersey). The small crowd continues to harass him and they unanimously object by exclaiming "Awwwww!" when he replies that he was born in Brooklyn.

Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out march into Sal's and demand that Sal change the pictures on the wall. Radio Raheem's boombox is blaring, as always, Public Enemy's "Fight the Power," at the highest volume. Sal demands that they turn the radio down or leave the shop, which the two men refuse to do. Reaching his wit's end, Sal snaps and destroys Radio Raheem's boombox with a baseball bat. Radio Raheem's prized possession destroyed, he becomes enraged and begins choking Sal. Vito and Pino jump onto Radio Raheem in attempt to pull the men apart, at which point the other black men in the restaurant join the scuffle. A fight ensues, which Vito and Mookie try to break up. The fight spills out into the streets, to a crowd of spectators cheering on the fight. White policemen arrive at the scene and begin to apprehend Radio Raheem and Buggin' Out. Radio Raheem is placed in a choke hold that kills him (a reference to a 1983 incident where graffiti artist Michael Stewart was apprehended for defacing public property and killed by the arresting officer in a similar manner).^[3] An underlying issue in this series of arrests is that of six officers present in this mostly black neighborhood, only one officer on the scene is black and the rest are white. Buggin' Out yells angrily as he is arrested. Officers continue to beat him from the front seat of the car as they drive him away from the scene.

The fight drew a large crowd of onlookers, all of whom are enraged about Radio Raheem's death. Deciding that the floodgates are going to burst open eventually, Mookie grabs a trash can and, screaming "HATE!", slings it through the window of Sal's restaurant. The angry crowd becomes an angry riotous mob, and rushes into the restaurant and destroys everything within and Smiley starts a fire. The crowd yells "Radio!" as the fire spreads.

From there, the mob led by M.L. begins to head for the Korean's market. "It's your turn now, sucka!" yells M.L. But Sunny, the owner, tries to fight them off with a broom all the while yelling, "I no white! I black! You...me...same! We same!", trying to explain he is one of them. The mob spares his store, and begins to disperse with Coconut Sid saying to M.L., "Leave the Korean alone! He's alright!"

Firefighters arrive and begin spraying Sal's building as the crowd is held back by riot patrol. The firefighters, after several warnings to the crowd, turn their hoses on the mob, further enraging them.

When it is all over, Sal's pizzeria is burned beyond recognition, while Sal and his two sons were saved by Da Mayor just before the riot started. Smiley, with no one else around to see, wanders back into the smoldering restaurant and, sympathetic to Buggin' Out's cause, hangs on what's left of Sal's "Wall of Fame" one of his pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. shaking hands.

The next day, Mookie, who has been at Tina's, goes to Sal's, where Mookie gets his weekly pay he had earlier been demanding to receive early. He and Sal cautiously reconcile.

The film ends on an ambiguous note due to two quotations. The first, from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., argues that violence is never justified under any circumstances. The second, from Malcolm X, argues that violence is "intelligent" when it is self-defense.

Characters

Major Characters

• Spike Lee as Mookie - a young black man working in Sal's Famous Pizza
• Danny Aiello as Sal - A surly Italian man who owns the pizzeria
• Ossie Davis as Da Mayor - an older black man who some call the town drunk
• Ruby Dee as Mother Sister - an older black woman who observes the neighborhood goings-ons from the window of her brownstone and despises Da Mayor
• Richard Edson as Vito - One of Sal's sons and a friend of Mookie's
• Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin' Out - an excitable, troublemaking friend of Mookie's who "wants some brothers" on Sal's wall of fame
• Bill Nunn as Radio Raheem - a towering young black man who always carries around a huge boom box blasting only Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" for racial reasons
• John Turturro as Pino -another one of Sal's sons. He is not happy about being one of the last Italians in the neighborhood, nor about his brother's interracial relationship

Supporting Characters

• Rosie Perez as Tina - Mookie's Latina girlfriend
• Paul Benjamin as ML
• Frankie Faison as Coconut Sid
• Robin Harris as Sweet Dick Willie
• Miguel Sandoval as Officer Mark Ponte - A hispanic policeman
• Rick Aiello as Officer Gary Long - a white policeman
• Joie Lee as Jade - Mookie's sister
• Samuel L. Jackson as Señor Love Daddy -
• Roger Guenveur Smith as Smiley - a young, mentally impaired man who tries to sell pictures of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.
• Steve Park as Sonny - A Korean grocery store owner across the street from Sal's
• Steve White as Ahmad
• Martin Lawrence as Cee
• Leonard L. Thomas as Punchy
• Tristan Lively as Ella
• Luis Ramos as Stevie
• John Savage as Clifton
• Frank Vincent as Charlie
• Richard Parnell Habersham as Eddie
• Ginny Yang as Kim - Sonny's wife

Production

Spike Lee wrote the screenplay in two weeks.^{[citation needed]} The original script of Do the Right Thing ends with a stronger reconciliation between Mookie and Sal. Sal's comments to Mookie mirror Da Mayor's earlier comments in the film and hint at some common ground and perhaps Sal's understanding of why Mookie was motivated to destroy his restaurant. It is unclear why Lee changed the ending.^[4]

The film was shot entirely on a real street in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood. The street's color scheme was heavily altered by the production designer, who used a great deal of red and orange paint in order to help convey the sense of a heatwave.

Spike Lee campaigned for Robert De Niro as Sal the pizzeria owner, but De Niro had to decline due to prior commitments. The character of Smiley was not in the original script; he was created by Roger Guenveur Smith, who was pestering Spike Lee for a role in the film.^[5] In contrast to the serious nature of the film, three of the cast members were stand-up comedians – Martin Lawrence, Steve White, and Robin Harris.

Controversies

The film was released to protests from many reviewers, including Joe Klein in New York magazine; it was openly stated in several newspapers that the film could incite black audiences to riot.^[6] No such riots occurred, and Lee criticized white reviewers for inferring that black audiences were incapable of restraining themselves while watching a fictional motion picture.^[7]

One of many questions at the end of the film is whether Mookie 'does the right thing' when he throws the garbage can through the window, thus inciting the riot that destroys Sal's pizzeria. The question is directly raised by the contradictory quotations that end the film, one advocating non-violence, the other advocating violent self-defense in response to oppression. Spike Lee himself, however, has stated that only white viewers ask this question. Lee believes the key point is that Mookie was angry at the death of Radio Raheem, and that viewers who question the riot's justification are implicitly valuing white property over the life of a black man.^[7] Mookie tells Sal to "Motherfuck a window. Radio Raheem is dead". However, some of the other characters in the film, such as Da Mayor, Mother Sister and Mister Señor, disapproved of the riot.

In June 2006, Entertainment Weekly magazine placed Do the Right Thing at #22 on its list of The 25 Most Controversial Movies Ever.^[8]

Political allusions

The film contains several allusions to then-recent race-related violent acts.

In the scene in which Mookie shows frustration with his sister for getting too close to Sal, "Tawana told the truth!" is spray painted on the bricks in the rear of this shot, referring to the 1987 Tawana Brawley rape hoax. Towards the end of the film, at the peak of the riot that ensues after Radio Raheem's death, the gathered characters yell the name of Eleanor Bumpurs and begin to chant "HOWARD BEACH! HOWARD BEACH!" referring to the 1986 Howard Beach incident.

Critical reception

The film received a rating of 98% from Rotten Tomatoes, which used to be 100% before April 2009. While in Metacritic, the film received an average of 91/100, being one of the top rated films on the site.

Awards and nominations

1989 Academy Awards

• Best Actor in a Supporting Role – Danny Aiello (nominated)
• Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen – Spike Lee (nominated)

1989 Cannes Film Festival

• Golden Palm – Spike Lee (nominated)^[9]

1990 Chicago Film Critics Association Awards

• Best Director – Spike Lee (won)
• Best Picture (won)
• Best Supporting Actor – Danny Aiello (won)

1990 Golden Globes

• Best Director (Motion Picture) – Spike Lee (nominated)
• Best Motion Picture – Drama (nominated)
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture – Danny Aiello (nominated)
• Best Screenplay (Motion Picture) – Spike Lee (nominated)

1991 NAACP Image Awards

• Outstanding Lead Actress in a Motion Picture – Ruby Dee (won)
• Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture – Ossie Davis (won)

1989 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards

• Best Director – Spike Lee (won)
• Best Music – Bill Lee (won)
• Best Picture (won)
• Best Supporting Actor – Danny Aiello (won)

1989 New York Film Critics Circle Awards

• Best Cinematographer – Ernest R. Dickerson (won)

AFI's 100 Years 100 Movies

• The American Film Institute from a poll of more than 1,500 artists and leaders in the American film industry voted it the 96th greatest film of all time in its 10th Anniversary Edition, 2007

National Film Preservation Board

• National Film Registry (1999)

MTV Movie Awards

• The Bucket of Excellence (lifetime achievement award, 2006)

Connections with other Lee films

• In the surreal final scene of School Daze, Dap Dunlap (Laurence Fishburne) pleads with the other characters (and the audience) to "Wake Up!" This exhortation is repeated by Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) at the beginning of Do the Right Thing. The whole 'Wake Up' scenario would go on to appear in numerous ways in Spike Lee's films such as Jungle Fever.
• The child character (Eddie) to whom Da Mayor gives money to buy beer and whom he saves later on, wears a shirt with the inscription 'Da Butt.' 'Da Butt' was a song performed by Experience Unlimited that became popular after the band performed it in the party scene in School Daze.
• The Air Jordan sneaker scuff scene was originally going to be in She's Gotta Have It, where a complete stranger steps on Mars Blackmon's black and red Jordans.
• Rick Aiello and Miguel Sandoval portray Long and Ponte, two police officers who eventually arrest Buggin' Out and kill Radio Raheem in a choke-hold. Long and Ponte reappear to harass Wesley Snipes' character Flipper in Jungle Fever. Aiello would go on to play the same police officer in the final scene in 1995 movie Clockers.
• In his 2006 movie Inside Man, Lee references Do the Right Thing by using pizza boxes that read "Sal's" on the lids.
• In Bamboozled, white television producer Thomas Dunwitty (played by Michael Rapaport) attempts to demonstrate his knowledge of African-American culture by pointing to photos of black athletes hanging in his office and saying, "Look at all the brothers on the wall." Dunwitty also refers to Al Sharpton as "Reverend Al 'Doo' Sharpton" similar to how John Turturro's character refers to Sharpton.

Soundtrack

The film's score and soundtrack were both released in December 1988. The soundtrack was successful, reaching the number eleven spot on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and peaking at sixty-eight on the Billboard 200.^[10] On the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart, the Perri track "Feel So Good" reached the fifty-first spot, while Public Enemy's "Fight the Power" reached number twenty, and Guy's "My Fantasy" went all the way to the top spot. "My Fantasy" also reached number six on the Hot Dance Music/Maxi-Singles Sales chart, and sixty-two on Billboard's Hot 100. "Fight the Power" also charted high on the Hot Dance Music chart, peaking at number three, and topped the Hot Rap Singles chart.^[11][12]

Score

Soundtrack

Notes

References

• Aftab, Kaleem. Spike Lee: That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It. England: Faber and Faber Limited, 2005. ISBN 0-393-06153-1.
• Spike Lee's Last Word. Documentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.
• Spike Lee et al. Commentary on the Criterion Collection DVD of Do the Right Thing. 2000.

External links

film portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Do the Right Thing

• Do the Right Thing at Allmovie
• Do the Right Thing at Box Office Mojo
• Do the Right Thing at the Criterion Collection
• Do the Right Thing at the Internet Movie Database
• Do the Right Thing at Metacritic
• Do the Right Thing at Rotten Tomatoes
• Do the Right Thing at the TCM Movie Database
• Script-O-Rama.com -- The Do the Right Thing screenplay.
• Smiley's picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King together is this image from the Library of Congress collection.^{[citation needed]}