She's Gotta Have It is a 1986 comedy-drama film written and directed by Spike Lee. It was also Lee's first feature-length film. The films stars Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks and John Canada Terrell.
Plot
Nola Darling (portrayed by Tracy Camilla Johns) is a young, attractive, sexually-independent Brooklynite who juggles three suitors: the polite and well-meaning Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks); the self-obsessed model Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell); and the immature, motor-mouthed bicycle messenger Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). Nola is attracted to the best in each of them, but refuses to commit to any of them, cherishing her personal freedom instead, even though each man wants her for himself.
Themes
She’s Gotta Have It contributes to countless African American elements and popular film language. In addition, it represents the first movie of the 1980s to place the achievement of individual desire at the forefront of the black liberation movement, in the same manner the individual is at the center of the hip-hop revolution. The movie also gave blackness a universal face, through the eyes of Mars (Spike Lee) and a universal home, Brooklyn. It is the story of Nola Darling, a young black woman, a source of conversation both in and out of the film. The film’s narrative style is taken from the challenges and pleasures of the competing views on who Nola truly is. This signifies the major source of controversy of the sexism in the movie as the viewer is reluctant to accept Nola’s voice as authoritative.
Nola idealizes having what men in the black community have—multiple sex partners—which symbolizes her as an individual struggling against the group. “A woman (or, at least Nola) can be a sexual being, doesn’t have to belong to a man, and perhaps shouldn’t even wish for such a thing.”[1] Above all, Nola’s voice is the most revolutionary element in the film, a representation of the struggle of African American women in society at the time.[2]
Background
She's Gotta Have It was Lee's first feature length motion picture as a writer/director and a landmark independent film of American cinema.
The New York Times wrote that the film "ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch's Stranger Than Paradise) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the representation of blacks in American cinema, depicting men and women of color not as pimps and whores, but as intelligent, upscale urbanites."[3]
The film was shot in twelve days during the summer of 1985 on a budget of $175,000 and grossed $7,137,502 at the U.S. box office.[1] Spike Lee details his trials and consolations on the making and distribution of the film in the book Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. The highly stylized, black-and-white film features a jazz score by Lee's father, Bill. Culture critic Nelson George, a personal friend of Lee's, was one of the film's main investors.[citation needed]
The film also served as a turning point for the Brooklyn neighborhood it was filmed in. Lee portrayed the neighborhood as a vibrant cosmopolitan community where successful African Americans thrived. In the film he not only focused scenes on Nola and her struggles, but spent time shooting local children, residents and graffiti, revealing the struggles of the neighborhood and the people in it to the world. A public park was used for the setting of much of the movie. This public space is made to feel like a comfortable place for the characters, serving to encourage others to investigate public spaces in the area and consequently creating a link with viewers in other places who also had similar thriving public spaces that were of community importance.[4] After the movie was released media attention was drawn to Brooklyn, from which a flood of artists and musicians began emerging.[5]
Cast
Reception
Awards and nominations
1986 Cannes Film Festival
- "Award of the Youth" Foreign Film — Spike Lee (won)
1986 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards
- "New Generation Award" — Spike Lee (won)
1987 Independent Spirit Awards
- Best First Feature — Spike Lee (won)
- Best Female Lead — Tracy Camilla Johns (nominated)
Current availability
She's Gotta Have It was released on DVD for the first time in North America on January 15, 2008, by Twentieth Century-Fox Home Entertainment through United Artists and MGM. However, despite the film celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2006 and being available on DVD in the United Kingdom, the DVD release for Region 1 took longer than expected. For a number of years, the film could only be seen by the public on its now out-of-print VHS tape, or occasional appearances on television networks such as the Independent Film Channel.
In the mid 1990s, The Criterion Collection released the film on laserdisc. A well-supplemented disc, it was likely to simply be reissued on DVD by The Criterion Collection, which had re-released other Spike Lee Joint's including Do The Right Thing. According to Spike Lee's agent, the film was to be eventually released on DVD. But, after frequent e-mails to Jonathan Turell of The Criterion Collection, the rumour ended with him saying "No for She's Gotta Have It. We don't have DVD rights."[6]
The current DVD contains no special features. No further plans for a Special Edition release by the Criterion Collection have been confirmed as of yet.
Notes
- ^ "She's Gotta Have It". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 30, 2006.
References
- Lee, Spike (1987). Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-64417-3.
External links
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