Spike Lee's first feature cost 175,000 dollars and took two weeks to shoot
Spike Lee made his first feature in two weeks on 175,000 dollars, writing, directing, producing, editing and acting in it himself. She's Gotta Have It went on to earn over 7 million dollars in American cinemas and helped launch the independent film wave of the 1980s, alongside Jim Jarmusch's work.
Shelton Jackson Lee was born in Atlanta in 1957 to a teacher of art and black literature and a jazz musician, and grew up in Brooklyn after the family moved north. His mother gave him the nickname Spike. He studied at Morehouse College, graduating in 1979, and earned a master's in film at New York University in 1982. His thesis short, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, had a notable crew: Ang Lee served as assistant director, Ernest Dickerson shot it, and his father Bill Lee wrote the music. It became the first student film shown at Lincoln Center's New Directors New Films festival and won a Student Academy Award.
Lee has kept filmmaking a family business. His siblings Joie, David and Cinque have all worked on his productions; David shot stills for nearly all his features before 2013, and Joie and Cinque co-wrote the semi-autobiographical Crooklyn with him. His company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films.
Do the Right Thing, a 1989 portrait of racial tension building on one hot Brooklyn day, is often seen as his defining work. Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert both called it the best film of that year, yet it earned only two Oscar nominations, one of them Lee's first, for original screenplay. The presenter Kim Basinger said from the stage that it deserved a place among the Best Picture nominees. Lee later said the victory of Driving Miss Daisy, which he considered built on safe stereotypes, stung more than being overlooked.
Recognition eventually arrived. Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington, topped Ebert's list for 1992. 25th Hour made nearly 24 million dollars on a 5 million budget and later placed 26th in a BBC critics' poll of films since 2000. In 2018 BlacKkKlansman finally won Lee a competitive Oscar, for adapted screenplay, and five of his films now sit in the National Film Registry.
Source: Spike Lee
