Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: People, Citizens of the World. What's Up quest Love? Welcome
Speaker 2: to a special Friday q LS Live. I guess we're
Speaker 2: doing it in tandem. This will also be archived on
Speaker 2: our iHeart podcast our special with Spike Lee Today. We
Speaker 2: we haven't done this in a minute. We haven't done
Speaker 2: this in the last two weeks.
Speaker 3: Long. Yeah, a lot.
Speaker 4: When you when you let wait two months, it's been
Speaker 4: that long? Its like it?
Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks, I you know tom this I used to
Speaker 2: laugh at.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: There's there's always two quotes that come from movies that
Speaker 2: deal with jail Street jail Uh you know the one,
Speaker 2: the one cliches like you know, they take your body,
Speaker 2: but not take your mind. Your mind, that's what you
Speaker 2: always hear. And number two is there's always two days.
Speaker 6: Only two days you come in and the day you
Speaker 6: walk out, the day you walk out.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I just lose track of time. You said,
Speaker 4: that's kind of.
Speaker 5: True, Like you, I said, what movie is that.
Speaker 4: Every day you walk in? That's from what I heard.
Speaker 6: I know it from the wire the you only do
Speaker 6: two days, the day you come in and the day
Speaker 6: you walk.
Speaker 4: Out the wire.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry that was our friend David Chappelle called us, Oh,
Speaker 2: speaking of.
Speaker 3: The last two weeks eight four to six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot a lot has that. Well,
Speaker 2: we have not spoken since. Uh the what are we calling?
Speaker 2: Are we calling the uprising?
Speaker 3: I like the uprising?
Speaker 6: The uprising. I like uprising. I like that better than
Speaker 6: riot because, you know.
Speaker 3: Protests, it's just something more progressive about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and more act it, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I mean, because just because riot sounds like or protests,
Speaker 6: riot sounds like, it's just it sounds reckless, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, Like these people are just out here
Speaker 6: rioting and being stupid for no reason whatsoever, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean?
Speaker 4: So I like uprising.
Speaker 6: It's people that right, nobody wants to be what Donald
Speaker 6: all right? Well yeah I didn't even I don't watch him,
Speaker 6: but I got you.
Speaker 4: I'm with you. I was literally like, who's that? Yeah?
Speaker 7: So are we going to do another episode on election
Speaker 7: night like we did it four years ago?
Speaker 6: Looking at the results we got from election night, I'd
Speaker 6: say hopefully not, because.
Speaker 7: Like, do we do we you know, do we go
Speaker 7: through that again or do we try and break the
Speaker 7: chinks by not doing a show that night.
Speaker 4: Oh god, why trying to.
Speaker 8: Break the I think it was Russia and the white ladies.
Speaker 8: They're voted for Trump. But that's that's with us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, who is our guest that night? I forgot Stephen Hill.
Speaker 4: That was Steve Hill.
Speaker 6: It was also the same night my uncle got shot
Speaker 6: and subsequently died like a couple of weeks later.
Speaker 4: He got shot that night.
Speaker 6: It was like that was like the eighth I want
Speaker 6: to say, and then he died on Thanksgiving Day.
Speaker 4: Ship that was it was just that was just a
Speaker 4: fun up day.
Speaker 2: And I remember it was like with with up Front,
Speaker 2: with with up selling out right, that was the weirdness
Speaker 2: about it. It's like the life and the funniest day
Speaker 2: about life, like upselling. What do you call it when
Speaker 2: you talk of the music on the radio?
Speaker 4: The back cell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, I forgot.
Speaker 6: I remember doing that interview when we were all sitting
Speaker 6: there and everybody had like their laptops or their phones
Speaker 6: or whatever, and we're all trying to keep it cool,
Speaker 6: and you just see the ship flipping red results red, like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And by the end of the interview it was crazy.
Speaker 6: Literally in a three hour interview, the world changed because
Speaker 6: that in the beginning, we were all like word up inside.
Speaker 4: And then by the end of that ship and by
Speaker 4: the end it was a wrap. It was a rep.
Speaker 3: That's not happening this time, y'all, that's not happening.
Speaker 7: We should we should re reair that episode with Stephen Hill.
Speaker 3: Well longer did that. At the time, Stephen Hill was
Speaker 3: the hell of b T and at.
Speaker 6: That time, and then that's right after that, Oh wow,
Speaker 6: A lot, a lot has happened on that show, DJ
Speaker 6: and a.
Speaker 3: Hell of a set on I G live.
Speaker 4: Hey Stephen, I be there, Yeah, Stephen, He DJ is on.
Speaker 4: He does.
Speaker 2: It's a little it's about eleven people watching. But you
Speaker 2: know me and old boy uh news, Uh dude from
Speaker 2: TV one.
Speaker 3: Uh listen, it's all a battles.
Speaker 6: Roling Martin Yeah, Roland Martin yeah. Oh yeah, I ain't
Speaker 6: going to that ship. Rolland Lord and blocked me for
Speaker 6: calling him a nigga on Twitter.
Speaker 4: So I don't don't know your what notable people will
Speaker 4: blocked you Twitter.
Speaker 6: The only one I know of I know. I remember
Speaker 6: rollingd Martin did and this was years ago because he
Speaker 6: was like, we deserve he just I don't have a list,
Speaker 6: like I just say things and people listen.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't try to, you know, provoke anyone. But no,
Speaker 6: he was just on Twitter. And this was years ago,
Speaker 6: this was before I found Christ. But he was just like, look,
Speaker 6: we need to ban the N word and all this.
Speaker 6: And I was like, nigga please, and that was it.
Speaker 6: And and and he just you know, he he banned me.
Speaker 6: And he still banned me and still has blocked me,
Speaker 6: which I mean, fine, whatever, But then.
Speaker 4: Mc Hammer has me blocked. I don't know why. And
Speaker 4: that was like.
Speaker 6: Like Hammer, like yo, Hammer, if you see this Hammer, bro,
Speaker 6: I don't know what I said. It could have been
Speaker 6: a joke order, but look, man, I saw the too
Speaker 6: legit to quit tour. Please haven't heard him tour?
Speaker 9: Uh?
Speaker 6: When I was in like seventh grade, it was you
Speaker 6: boys and men and Josy. That shit changed my life.
Speaker 6: Like Hammer, please all the forgiven, bro, Like, come on
Speaker 6: the show, man, let's please please us.
Speaker 4: Don't hurt him, right, please hurt it.
Speaker 8: I would love to have y'all come to Jesus moment
Speaker 8: on this show, much like we had your Solange come
Speaker 8: to Jesus moment on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you even think that Hammer was even remotely
Speaker 2: aware of who he blocked or what the situation was.
Speaker 6: He probably had no fun. I'm sure he doesn't have
Speaker 6: any clue. I mean it could have I don't know
Speaker 6: what it could have been. It could have been a joke,
Speaker 6: it could have been whatever. But the bottom line is
Speaker 6: I was following him c Hammer like, I mean, I
Speaker 6: you know, I fucked with.
Speaker 4: Him Hammer legend. But so if we get him on
Speaker 4: the show, we straighten it out. Maybe it's usually get
Speaker 4: him on the show. I don't even know why.
Speaker 7: Okay, I would like to get Hammer the other guy
Speaker 7: on too, please from from even Roland Martin, Roland Martin.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's get him on.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's time.
Speaker 6: I mean we can't because he don't listen. I'm not
Speaker 6: I'm not ducking no smoke for nobody. I just don't
Speaker 6: think because he's very he has very specific views about
Speaker 6: about the N word and like coon and stuff and I.
Speaker 4: Don't use that word, but yeah, he's like very big
Speaker 4: on those words.
Speaker 6: And that is yes, I use like nigga is noun adjective, verb,
Speaker 6: ain't ad verb.
Speaker 4: So listen, stand near you're doing.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm like, come on, bro, you ain't about to
Speaker 6: tell me what I can't say on the show we're doing.
Speaker 7: So, Hey, yeah, if we could work in with Spike
Speaker 7: about the way Bamboozle kind of is relevant to I
Speaker 7: mean a lot of ways, but especially to what's going
Speaker 7: on like literally today like Cream of Wheat is changing
Speaker 7: their logo.
Speaker 10: And Temima and the Washington Red Finally, yeah, I was
Speaker 10: about to say, are the Redskins considering as well?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 7: Yeah, everybody is considering it now, you know, like so,
Speaker 7: but bamboozo was kind of like specifically about that symbolism stuff.
Speaker 4: That was a good pool. I didn't I didn't think
Speaker 4: about that. Yeah, I know that.
Speaker 2: Uh that Netflix did their whole Black Lives Matter section
Speaker 2: for Spike reason, you know, like get on the bus
Speaker 2: and Rodney King thing and some of the stuff he
Speaker 2: did Jango.
Speaker 4: Uh Jengo was done by.
Speaker 5: I.
Speaker 8: You know that That's what I was making. I was
Speaker 8: just saying black lead because the Netflix section is no, no, no.
Speaker 2: I just been like, Spike has his own wing in
Speaker 2: the he has his own suite in the Black Lives
Speaker 2: Matter hotel on Netflix.
Speaker 8: Netflix is going above and beyond. You know, the President
Speaker 8: just gave all this money to HBCUs. But most notably
Speaker 8: the riches of HBC used more houses film and I'm
Speaker 8: not mad.
Speaker 4: I'm just right right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, wait a minute before we get Spike on,
Speaker 2: I need somebody to translate something for me, cause I
Speaker 2: don't you know, I don't want to be tone deaf
Speaker 2: and say I don't speak millennial. And on top of that,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm pals with this particular person.
Speaker 4: Okay, can someone I'm gen x.
Speaker 5: X.
Speaker 4: He's gen X man, look it up.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm not going I'm just gonna look it up.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, look it up.
Speaker 6: I was born I was born in seventy eight. I'm
Speaker 6: forty one years old. I'm like, he's gen X.
Speaker 4: He's US. I'm like, yeah, I'm like the youngest in
Speaker 4: but yeah, I'm like right there.
Speaker 2: But can someone translate this? Can you give me a
Speaker 2: movie in the minute version of this? J Cole no
Speaker 2: name thing?
Speaker 3: What's that about?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I talked, come on, never mind too much? No, no, no, no,
Speaker 6: it's not too much. It's okay, So moving in a minute.
Speaker 6: J Cole, no name, Okay, no name, and I'm just
Speaker 6: giving context. No name did a talk which I did
Speaker 6: not see. I just saw kind of the out the
Speaker 6: out you know, the fallout of it. She did a
Speaker 6: talk with Boots Riley on Live I think, and they
Speaker 6: were just talking about I guess socialism and police abolition,
Speaker 6: like they were just having a conversation. I didn't see
Speaker 6: the entire thing in context, but the fallout. The what
Speaker 6: I saw from the fallout was that, oh he was
Speaker 6: over talking her and he was it just it went
Speaker 6: left right.
Speaker 4: Then J Cole puts out.
Speaker 6: A song and he's saying, yo, it was this sister
Speaker 6: on her timeline. She don't like the crackers, she don't
Speaker 6: like the police, she don't like this, and you know,
Speaker 6: it was something about her tone that's bothering me.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 6: At no point in this song did he ever say
Speaker 6: no name. At no point in no names tweets or
Speaker 6: in her talk with Boots Riley. As I understood, she
Speaker 6: had said something about, you know, with all these rappers,
Speaker 6: these rich rappers or something, you know, they they ain't
Speaker 6: said nothing. But she never said his name or anyone's name.
Speaker 6: So Cole puts out this song saying it's this girl
Speaker 6: online saying this that, and the third out like her tone.
Speaker 6: I saw another site put up and they were saying yo,
Speaker 6: J Cole is saying it's talking about No Name in
Speaker 6: his new verse. Now, at no point in time in
Speaker 6: any of this that he ever say her name in
Speaker 6: the verse, and to my knowledge, at no point did
Speaker 6: she ever say his name. So, as far as I'm sitting,
Speaker 6: all this shit is just fucking conjecture to start right,
Speaker 6: it's just y'all niggas. It's all fucking speculation. So the
Speaker 6: song comes out, people say it's to meet about No Name.
Speaker 6: Everybody lose this shit. Oh, he's policing a woman he's
Speaker 6: watched talk about her, tone, police and all this shit,
Speaker 6: and it just becomes a shit show.
Speaker 4: So then the next morning, Cole put out.
Speaker 6: A series of tweets and he was just like, look,
Speaker 6: I said what I said.
Speaker 4: You know, all love the No Name.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: He you know, he was like, you know, she's doing
Speaker 6: the work. I'm not a dude to be reading like that.
Speaker 6: And these are his words.
Speaker 4: He's like, I don't be.
Speaker 3: Reading like that.
Speaker 4: He's like, he's like, you know, red J Cole.
Speaker 6: But he says in his verse, he's like, Yo, don't
Speaker 6: let my degree fool you.
Speaker 4: You know you can have you.
Speaker 6: Know, just because I went to college doesn't mean i'm
Speaker 6: as up on these issues as everyone else. So so
Speaker 6: that was so that was that, and I mean that
Speaker 6: was it to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just a ship show for day and
Speaker 4: I mean.
Speaker 2: I came in the middle of it, and didn't you
Speaker 2: know was Donald Glover walking to the apartment on fire?
Speaker 6: Like exactly, that's exactly. I was like, what in the
Speaker 6: hell exactly?
Speaker 8: Can I just say one month thing before we bring
Speaker 8: the spike in because he's here. I just wanted to
Speaker 8: say congratulations to old girl who created you about to
Speaker 8: lose your job because I don't know if y'all heard,
Speaker 8: but she found her family and they got her off
Speaker 8: the streets.
Speaker 3: I was just really excited that story.
Speaker 4: Are you serious?
Speaker 5: Ship?
Speaker 3: And she was like, y'all have no idea what that
Speaker 3: did for me.
Speaker 8: So I wish I had her name in front of me,
Speaker 8: but I don't, But I.
Speaker 6: I had no you know, I will say this just
Speaker 6: to tap off big Upsta the girl that that with
Speaker 6: that coin that you were about to lose or lose
Speaker 6: your job anthem. The best tweet of the j Cole
Speaker 6: No Name debacle goes to my man al Shipley and
Speaker 6: he won Twitter. It's only like eight of us that
Speaker 6: like got it, but it was a great tweet. He goes,
Speaker 6: and I quote the j cole lyric is something about
Speaker 6: the Queen tone that's bothering me. It's problematic because nobody
Speaker 6: questions Brian May's pedal board and amp settings.
Speaker 4: And I'm bringing in bigger like that's it. I mean,
Speaker 4: come on, that's all you need to know. Like, that's
Speaker 4: that's it.
Speaker 5: That's what it is, and.
Speaker 3: Figure out that joke because that was a total like
Speaker 3: musical type.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: It was that it was made for me and all
Speaker 4: the people, all the people. Brian May was the.
Speaker 6: Guitarist in Queen and so the pedal board is the UH.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, We are joined by friends of the show,
Speaker 2: newly bestowed Academy Award winner storyteller Our Tour African American
Speaker 2: Griot and always the UH.
Speaker 4: A cinematic provocateur.
Speaker 2: UH, one of the last original storytellers we have today.
Speaker 2: Please welcome back to q LS Live and quest Love
Speaker 2: Supreme UH for his second appearance, our pale and friend,
Speaker 2: mister Spike Lee.
Speaker 4: How are you house?
Speaker 5: Everyone doing? Everybody's safe?
Speaker 4: Were good? Brother? Were good? You up? Are you right now?
Speaker 5: Now? This is my office hearing the People's Republic of Brookly,
Speaker 5: New York for Green Baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Sames Fall. I visited with the baseball Mint in
Speaker 4: the in the.
Speaker 11: Room, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but just one of the
Speaker 11: editing rooms.
Speaker 4: I took a nap in everyone once I forgot what
Speaker 4: I was there for. You you had a super Bowl
Speaker 4: party or something, and I.
Speaker 5: Faid, where's everybody.
Speaker 4: I'm at home in North Carolina.
Speaker 6: Raley, I'm in Los Angeles, LA.
Speaker 7: I'm in Manhattan.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: And I'm in a ranch somewhere in Westchester on a
Speaker 2: friends farm. But I just closed him on my house yesterday.
Speaker 2: So yes, I'll be thank you.
Speaker 5: What can I ask for?
Speaker 3: Burrow?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: This is in Palisades, so yeah, I have to say, Spike,
Speaker 2: I believe that the last time I physically saw you,
Speaker 2: I saw you twice, you were flying on your way.
Speaker 2: I believe, just somewhere in Africa or somewhere overseas where
Speaker 2: you told me that it was the first day of
Speaker 2: scouting wherever.
Speaker 4: I don't know where you shot the.
Speaker 5: Film, but I was going to I was going to Thieland.
Speaker 2: Okay, maybe I thought Africa. Okay, I remember you telling
Speaker 2: me that you were going somewhere far off to shoot, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I saw you there.
Speaker 5: And then at jay Z's party.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, I saw you in the airport.
Speaker 2: Well, I forget where it was, but it was you
Speaker 2: were on your way to scout for locations. And then
Speaker 2: I saw you on the way back home, oh, coming
Speaker 2: from it.
Speaker 5: So that's a police circle exactly.
Speaker 2: You gave me a synopsis on the way home, and
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm trying to figure that out and
Speaker 2: quest people still trying to figure it out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, let's talk about it. Let's talk about it. Okay. Look, okay,
Speaker 4: So I got a question for you.
Speaker 6: What was the idea of naming all the soldiers after
Speaker 6: the Temptations and Norman Whitfield like being stormy Norman?
Speaker 4: You got that one.
Speaker 3: I didn't catch that.
Speaker 4: I didn't catch that.
Speaker 5: Look like, wait, what happened to five? And when a
Speaker 5: good thing though? A great happy? The other day, Otis
Speaker 5: Lee was called me, wow, okay, the last living member
Speaker 5: of the Temptations, and he says, he told me, I'm
Speaker 5: speaking behalf of all my brothers aren't here. Thank you
Speaker 5: for doing that.
Speaker 4: That's what's up, man.
Speaker 5: It was out of nowhere, so out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: One one question I wanted to ask you the last
Speaker 2: time we spoke that I didn't what is for this
Speaker 2: movie specifically? And I think the last time we spoke
Speaker 2: to you, you were just about to launch. Uh, she's
Speaker 2: got to have it on Netflix. So this is even
Speaker 2: before Black Clansmen, even though you were still working on it. Okay,
Speaker 2: So I guess I can start with now, like now
Speaker 2: that this is in the can, what what is what
Speaker 2: is your what is your daily or weekly process when
Speaker 2: it comes to conceptualizing.
Speaker 4: What do you want to add next to your cannon?
Speaker 2: Like I don't know the name of whatever movie you're
Speaker 2: about to do, but like, does the idea of start
Speaker 2: in that room that you're in right now?
Speaker 4: Do you sit for silence? Do you do you have
Speaker 4: a a notepad where you.
Speaker 5: I'm open, you know, I think that I've learned. I'm
Speaker 5: qus I think you might forgot. I'm sixty three years old.
Speaker 5: I'm I'm in my fourth decade.
Speaker 11: So I've learned that I gotta be open when the
Speaker 11: news comes.
Speaker 5: I just can't like now I'm gonna now, I gotta
Speaker 5: think of an ideal. It doesn't for me, mhm, it
Speaker 5: doesn't work like that. So I just gotta be open
Speaker 5: to the muse. I trusted, you know, I trust the muse.
Speaker 4: So where did it start for this film? Like? What
Speaker 4: was the he was we.
Speaker 8: Were interviewing him when we interviewed you an Electric Lady,
Speaker 8: you were telling us singing the Praises about nineteen seventeen, right.
Speaker 3: That was the movie?
Speaker 5: Is a movie?
Speaker 3: That was the war movie?
Speaker 4: That was a war movie.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, So that's the question.
Speaker 8: Just being back on the mirrors question, I was like,
Speaker 8: didn't it start all the way back then when you
Speaker 8: were talking.
Speaker 5: To No No, But let me let me tell you
Speaker 5: the story this is. I did not write the original
Speaker 5: script for this. The original script was written by Danny
Speaker 5: Bilson and Paul the Male. Paul the Mail has since died.
Speaker 5: Since he died before we started to shoot the film
Speaker 5: of an Illness, they produced the Lloyd Levin option. The script.
Speaker 5: It was called The Last Tour and it was about
Speaker 5: white Vietnam vets except one. They automatically brought it to
Speaker 5: Alvar Stone Alice Don't sat on it for two years
Speaker 5: and walked away. Lloyd Levin just happened to read the
Speaker 5: article in the Guardian where I talked about one of.
Speaker 12: My favorite films, which is a Treasure Sarah Madre starring
Speaker 12: Humphrey Bogart h and the tape There's a Gold that
Speaker 12: the whole gold in this.
Speaker 5: Film was came directly from the trust Sarah Madre. He
Speaker 5: called me up, said set you know, step a meeting.
Speaker 5: We get we're getting ready to go right into Black Klansmen.
Speaker 5: So we met with my co writer Kevin Wilmont, and
Speaker 5: we told I told, look, I like it. It's a
Speaker 5: great script. I want to change for me to be involved,
Speaker 5: we have to change the viewpoint. This has to be
Speaker 5: told to the viewpoint of African American Vietnam debts.
Speaker 12: And Kevin and I we wrote it, you know, twisted it,
Speaker 12: put some funk on it.
Speaker 5: And Marvin Gaye, you know everybody and the world of
Speaker 5: Senior result now on Netflix.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I love the way you use the barbing gay A
Speaker 6: cappellas in the joint.
Speaker 5: Man was only there was only one? No, there was
Speaker 5: only one?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, that was beautiful. Man.
Speaker 3: And you said you filmed this in Thailand, not Vietnam.
Speaker 5: Right, No, mostly in Thailand, and we ended in Vietnam.
Speaker 3: So can you talk about this?
Speaker 8: I was talking to another filmmaker about filming in Vietnam,
Speaker 8: and they were talking about since it's a communist country,
Speaker 8: how sometimes challenging it could be, like sometimes they have
Speaker 8: people following people to make sure you're doing what you
Speaker 8: say you're gonna do.
Speaker 3: And what was that?
Speaker 5: No, we never had that, but we had to have
Speaker 5: the script passed through it as censor, so we didn't know.
Speaker 11: And we were up.
Speaker 5: There last week in Thailand and we still not gotten
Speaker 5: the green light to shoot in Vietnam. But once we
Speaker 5: got the green light, no one's following us. It was
Speaker 5: all love. And it's also number one in Vietnam too.
Speaker 2: Netflix, do you prefer Is this an adjustment to you? Like,
Speaker 2: I know, I would imagine the same way for it
Speaker 2: is for me making records, Like I miss the sort
Speaker 2: of the romantic view of like having a tangible piece
Speaker 2: of wax with an album cover or whatever format. I
Speaker 2: mean CDs and cassettes are no longer there, but still,
Speaker 2: like you know, for movie makers, I would imagine that
Speaker 2: they still dream of you know, yeah, like looking at
Speaker 2: the mark key and seeing their names and sort of
Speaker 2: I mean, does I know Netflix doesn't have the same
Speaker 2: cachet as going straight to video and you actually see
Speaker 2: bigger results but is that at least an ego adjustment
Speaker 2: that this is now the new normal for filmmakers where
Speaker 2: you go straight to streaming as a proposed to inside
Speaker 2: of movie theaters, Like does it feel different for you?
Speaker 5: Or Netflix was the last place I had to go
Speaker 5: and this every other studio said, no, coming off black class.
Speaker 4: Even off even coming off of an Oscar Win.
Speaker 5: Well, that's not happened. But we were nominated, right, okay,
Speaker 5: six nominations turn us down, So God bless Netflix. Now.
Speaker 5: Of course, no one knew the world was going to change.
Speaker 4: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: So a lot of people have films ready, but their studios,
Speaker 5: which they made them for, does not have a streaming service.
Speaker 5: So because of that, and this was Next Six's film,
Speaker 5: This film debuted all around the world at the same time,
Speaker 5: before the world changed BC, not before christ but before Corona.
Speaker 5: I was going to be the president of the Jury,
Speaker 5: the first black president ever. And the con film festimes. Yes,
Speaker 5: and this is you hear that, and this is in
Speaker 5: the world and the world premiere of the Five Bloods
Speaker 5: is gonna be income out of competition. The world changed.
Speaker 5: But the answer will give you a more a deeper
Speaker 5: answer that you know plans change, and a lot of
Speaker 5: everybody had died had plans. Twenty over twenty thousand New
Speaker 5: Yorkers had plans. Over one hundred thousand Americans had plans.
Speaker 5: All these people had plans. So for me, I'm just
Speaker 5: I say, God, bless him alive and my family is
Speaker 5: you know, That's where I take it. I don't mean,
Speaker 5: I don't mean to get any deep spiritual thing, but
Speaker 5: for me, and how can I complain that my movie
Speaker 5: didn't come out the way it did? You know, when
Speaker 5: when people everybody had plans and the world has changed,
Speaker 5: you know, and the ones that are here, the screaming
Speaker 5: black Lives matter all over.
Speaker 4: The world, right, facts, The timing couldn't have been more uncanny.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And then another thing, another thing. I
Speaker 5: know you have questions for me, but go down say
Speaker 5: something right away to not forget it. People asking me,
Speaker 5: friends and journalists. Spike, didn't you, well, all this should happen.
Speaker 5: Didn't you run back and shoot that Black Lives Matter scene? Wrong?
Speaker 5: That is the first thing we shot. Wow, really, this
Speaker 5: is the slate of a camera. The first day of
Speaker 5: Princeville Talkley was March twenty nineteen, and we went to
Speaker 5: May twenty first, twenty nineteen. So again the first day
Speaker 5: of Prince photography was March twenty fifth, a full year
Speaker 5: before we shot the Black Lives Matter scene and pre production.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: So anyway, there are a lot of things that happen
Speaker 5: in this film. It's on some spiritual level that nothing
Speaker 5: to do.
Speaker 4: With that's happened with a lot of your films. Though.
Speaker 4: We were talking before, like before you came on.
Speaker 6: About how Bamboozo and like how now we're seeing like
Speaker 6: they're getting you know, Uncle Ben and not Jemima and
Speaker 6: like getting all that out of the paint.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying. And you were showing that
Speaker 4: you know that was you know twenty years ago. Are there?
Speaker 5: You know you leave it out, You leave it out something,
Speaker 5: do the right thing. We were talking about global warming.
Speaker 4: You weren't. You weren't talking about global you don't you know?
Speaker 5: My friends called me what Nico domas to be like
Speaker 5: you we talking about ship before it should even happened.
Speaker 5: You did.
Speaker 2: Wait, that's okay, So I'll say like every other month
Speaker 2: I might bug you with the text asking why your
Speaker 2: entire uh film uh, your film collection isn't in one space.
Speaker 4: I mean right now is do you not think?
Speaker 13: Now?
Speaker 4: Is is uh?
Speaker 2: And its twentieth in its twentieth anniversary, now's the time
Speaker 2: for bamboozo to come out again because I can't find
Speaker 2: it anywhere and I need to see it.
Speaker 5: It just came out and Criterion just put on a
Speaker 5: great new blue rail of it, restored picture, sound, everything.
Speaker 4: Bamboozos is a Criterion Collection film. Yes what you did that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Man is in This is like two months ago.
Speaker 4: This is a very suite. Like in my mind, I'm
Speaker 4: such a film nerd.
Speaker 2: I'm like, wow, I wish one day I could be
Speaker 2: a Criterion film And now I will say that. All right,
Speaker 2: So living on a tour bus for like the last
Speaker 2: twenty five years, you know, you just buy any and
Speaker 2: every DVD that to keep your mind occupied. So Criterion
Speaker 2: Collection is basically like it's it's it's the it's the
Speaker 2: upper echelon line Rolls Royce. Yeah, it's the upper echelon
Speaker 2: of film releases. It's like a committee that decides that
Speaker 2: this particular film, regardless of it, of its stature and
Speaker 2: the box office whatever, deserves the royal treatment. I mean,
Speaker 2: now you know companies are doing that. Now that you
Speaker 2: know there's twenty fifth anniversary of this in thirty.
Speaker 4: Fifth Anniversity of Purple Raine and no da da.
Speaker 2: But like back in the day, when Criterion approaches you
Speaker 2: and says we would like to re release, it would
Speaker 2: be like an independent label deciding, Okay, I'm gonna take
Speaker 2: Fante's for a record, the first Little Brother record the
Speaker 2: listening and give it the royal treatment, remaster it you outum.
Speaker 5: Cover great analogy, great analogy.
Speaker 2: Yeah and so uh wow, that's funny. It's always been
Speaker 2: my dream to be in a Criterion.
Speaker 4: Be careful.
Speaker 8: Wait, can I just ask this question, Spike, because you
Speaker 8: more than me, but like you said, you are Negro
Speaker 8: domas And what does it feel like present day? Because
Speaker 8: we were just talking about this before you came on
Speaker 8: where Number one, we have protests, including all kinds of
Speaker 8: people outside of us. Number two, we wake up to
Speaker 8: no more Uncle Ben, no more an't your mama. Twitter
Speaker 8: says Junie teenth is a holiday. New York says June
Speaker 8: teenth is a state holiday. Like, I feel overwhelmed. What
Speaker 8: does it feel like? It's a lot?
Speaker 2: In other words, how many calls did you get? How
Speaker 2: many calls did you get the last two weeks? To
Speaker 2: explain stuff to them, and how.
Speaker 4: Many you didn't explain?
Speaker 2: Many rough drafts did you have to read to make
Speaker 2: sure that this tweet was okay? And though here's my answer,
Speaker 2: they barely.
Speaker 11: Motherfucker, Uncle Ben alone, Uncle Ben man.
Speaker 3: Right, you came with Jemima, she got a whole new look, so.
Speaker 5: You got a right.
Speaker 4: No the story. Actually, you know what I just read that.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that similar to the family that won
Speaker 2: that settlement for the line Sleeps Tonight.
Speaker 4: The South African family for writing it.
Speaker 14: For the last thirty seven years, the family of the
Speaker 14: woman who was the original aunt Jemima Logo, who was
Speaker 14: also instrumental in them getting the recipe together, has been
Speaker 14: trying to like she's basically owed.
Speaker 2: The minimum is at least a two billion dollar settlement
Speaker 2: for the last money.
Speaker 4: So let's let's see what happened.
Speaker 5: But white corporations, they're like the money way, like it's
Speaker 5: all right.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Like I don't know, I'm a shocked. I don't
Speaker 8: know whether to take people on their word, like it's
Speaker 8: gonna change in a week. I don't want to get
Speaker 8: used to it.
Speaker 2: It's very you know what it is like reparation cool
Speaker 2: it's it's cool, but it's like, I don't I feel
Speaker 2: like this is more like a get out of discussions
Speaker 2: free card and go away. Yeah yeah, and it's not
Speaker 2: just going to be you know, it's like this is
Speaker 2: sort of like with the I voted for Obama, so
Speaker 2: now racism is over, and it's like, okay, well I
Speaker 2: donated Amazon's like a I'll give two hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: million dollars to this particular Da da da, So now
Speaker 2: races is over, there's there's still a bigger conversation to
Speaker 2: have for real change.
Speaker 4: So I mean, yeah, like.
Speaker 2: It's it's it's cool now, but I still feel as
Speaker 2: though that's that's kind of a get out of discussions
Speaker 2: free card, and that's the deeper that's the deeper conversation
Speaker 2: that needs to be had. So I mean it's cute,
Speaker 2: but I'm watching very skeptically right now.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Spike, I always wanted to ask you after you
Speaker 6: one for Black Clansmen, Uh, being the director that won,
Speaker 6: you know, finally got an oscar like later in your career,
Speaker 6: what changes was it?
Speaker 4: Because or where there changes?
Speaker 6: You know, we've seen people that win them early and
Speaker 6: they kind of you know, it changes them, But you
Speaker 6: had been putting in the work for so long, and
Speaker 6: your track record already spoke for itself.
Speaker 5: So a lot of times a question, well you see
Speaker 5: a question between Black Class and the Five Bloods that
Speaker 5: you think that affected Kemy Wood affected the Five Bloods.
Speaker 4: But so but you said, had you won? Oh, we
Speaker 4: just fat you had nominated.
Speaker 6: You were nominated, but then they still passed, but you
Speaker 6: didn't and you won. I guess it was after was
Speaker 6: the Five was already in production when you won.
Speaker 5: No, the morning after, the morning after, I was on
Speaker 5: a plane that Thailand, Bangkok, Ah.
Speaker 4: Okay, Okay, I got even after you wan, it was
Speaker 4: still a fight to get your stuff without.
Speaker 5: Now the deal was done. I'm just saying that Netflix
Speaker 5: was the last one I had to I could. It
Speaker 5: was doing else to go to.
Speaker 4: Too, you know.
Speaker 5: So we won the Oscar. We partied that night. That
Speaker 5: morning I never went to bed, packed my bags and
Speaker 5: was on a plane that Bangkok, Thailand.
Speaker 4: It was l a X. Now I'm sorry, okay.
Speaker 5: And so my production, my great productions, I to win
Speaker 5: Thomas whose first film was She's Gonna Have It in
Speaker 5: nineteen eighties. My climatoger Tom Siegel. They had been in
Speaker 5: Bangkock for four weeks already. The Anxis too had to
Speaker 5: do the Oscar shit, so I had to catch up.
Speaker 5: So minute I landed in Bangkock, in that one hundred
Speaker 5: degrees hit outside the head, that Oscar stuff out the
Speaker 5: fucking window, it was over here. I had to catch
Speaker 5: up because we get ready shoot a movie. So all
Speaker 5: the Oscar stuff between Lax and ban Cock was gone.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: I guess it would be more apt to ask an actor,
Speaker 2: what kind of director are you?
Speaker 4: Are you the director that?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 4: No, no, no, no, okay, so.
Speaker 5: I answered, I can't answer that, I asked.
Speaker 2: I asked Paul Thomas answer this question like he Paul
Speaker 2: Thomas pt Anderson is the type of guy that will
Speaker 2: do twenty takes of the same scene because he knows,
Speaker 2: by like the thirty team time, there will be a
Speaker 2: certain rhythm that feels natural.
Speaker 4: But the level of intensity that you.
Speaker 2: Got Delroy Lindo did really give you in this film
Speaker 2: his most Yeah, his most, so, like how many takes
Speaker 2: does it take to get him to that level?
Speaker 4: Like was this just take one he was on? Or
Speaker 4: it took a few times.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'll give more than one take. But here's
Speaker 5: the thing. This is my fourth film with Delroy, but
Speaker 5: it's been twenty five years between this and the last one.
Speaker 5: Delroy first worked with me played Western Archie, Yeah, Malcolm
Speaker 5: xIC great. He was in Clocks, played the drug Kingpinn.
Speaker 5: Also played my actual Fatherokly Forgot about Crookly.
Speaker 11: He played my father in All you guys, Lazy and Jim.
Speaker 5: You all notice that you can have great talent, but
Speaker 5: sometimes you get lost in the sauce. Putting in work,
Speaker 5: putting in work, but you get that that vehicle. Mm hmm,
Speaker 5: you get that role. Thats been putting work w r
Speaker 5: K for.
Speaker 4: The get been here sorry fighting the air.
Speaker 5: Delroy did not fall off the truck. He's been putting
Speaker 5: in work and this role he had the vehicle. He
Speaker 5: took it to another level and he was in his own.
Speaker 9: Can we talk about casting, because I was going to say,
Speaker 9: how did you in your mind?
Speaker 2: Like, how did you how did you decide that this
Speaker 2: was the right ensemble for you.
Speaker 5: I've worked with them three other times. I know I
Speaker 5: know what he could do first ten experience.
Speaker 8: But Spike, on fairness, you've done so many movies with
Speaker 8: such a large collective of actors that you have a
Speaker 8: vat that you could have picked out of.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know from Laurence Fishburne of people that
Speaker 3: could have Nah.
Speaker 6: We me and my wife we were talking the other
Speaker 6: night and last night we were watching I think they've
Speaker 6: been showing She They've been showing He Got Game a
Speaker 6: lot on HBO now, like they've been showing that a lot.
Speaker 6: And we were just talking like how you you were
Speaker 6: kind of like the Miles Davis of in terms of
Speaker 6: like a talent scout, like what Miles Davis was the
Speaker 6: jazz and being able to see Herbie, to see Cole Trank,
Speaker 6: like the dudes and the actresses and actors that you pick,
Speaker 6: you know, the stuff that they go on to do
Speaker 6: after working with you, and you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: it is incredible. And one actor that you chose for
Speaker 6: the Five Bloods that I love is Jonathan Majrix who
Speaker 6: plays the son. How how did you pick him and
Speaker 6: what was what was the thing you saw in him
Speaker 6: that was like, Yo, he's the one O Delroy.
Speaker 4: Jonathan Major. Have you seen San Francisco?
Speaker 5: I have the place I didn't see him in that
Speaker 5: film after the audition.
Speaker 4: That's why I thought you chose him.
Speaker 5: No. Casting director Kim Coleman, Wow, I just wanted to,
Speaker 5: you know, let's talk but but but talk about I mean,
Speaker 5: here's the thing. Do the right thing? Was Rosie President's
Speaker 5: first film, had the late Great Robin Harsh's first film,
Speaker 5: Mark lawrence first film, Jungle Fee was Howie Berry's first film,
Speaker 5: Queenly Chiefess first film, and we can go on and
Speaker 5: on and Barry Gory Yeah, but John that was that
Speaker 5: was his first one. But yeah, but still so I
Speaker 5: just have when I get the vibe, you know, I
Speaker 5: know that's somebody want to work with and work with again.
Speaker 2: I would like to know what's the barometer for I mean,
Speaker 2: I would think that having a ninety two in Rotten Tomatoes,
Speaker 2: I mean it doesn't doesn't.
Speaker 4: Hurt at all.
Speaker 2: But what is what is the barometer now that there
Speaker 2: isn't a box office listing per se to determine if
Speaker 2: a film does well or not does well? Like, how
Speaker 2: do you what's what's the what's the new standard or
Speaker 2: the number?
Speaker 5: Well this is I heard that our opening box offers
Speaker 5: if you could make analogy from the people saw it
Speaker 5: on Netflix to people buying a ticket, we open up
Speaker 5: like one hundred and twenty five million dollars weekend. Real good,
Speaker 5: it very good. OK.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to know, But is it good
Speaker 4: enough for Netflix to say let's make it? Are you
Speaker 4: just say one at a time?
Speaker 5: No, no, no, I mean it. It's there's love again,
Speaker 5: I said before no one else wanted to do this film.
Speaker 2: In light of his new studio in Atlanta? Did you
Speaker 2: take it down to Noah?
Speaker 4: Was?
Speaker 5: It was?
Speaker 9: No?
Speaker 11: And that's no direspect to my brother, because.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no quest It's all love, baby,
Speaker 2: And I just want to say something that you know in.
Speaker 5: This suddenly showed me and Tyler a mad cool. That
Speaker 5: beat was splashed years ago. I called him up out
Speaker 5: of the blue. He said, I said, you gotta talk.
Speaker 11: I jumped, put my ass, my black guys.
Speaker 5: On a plane from La Guardian in Atlanta.
Speaker 11: Went out to his mansion. We sat down, talked brother
Speaker 11: the brother.
Speaker 5: Man a black man, gave each other hug and for
Speaker 5: nothing but love ever since.
Speaker 4: To get it.
Speaker 5: Remember this, he did not, you know, all that big
Speaker 5: complex he has. He not had to put my name
Speaker 5: on a studio, on one of the studios, one of
Speaker 5: those stages he had to do that, so.
Speaker 3: Because there would be no Tyler not for you, but
Speaker 3: he did.
Speaker 5: But that it wasn't even about that. I know, It's
Speaker 5: just it's love. I did not want to put Tyler
Speaker 5: in a position You're like come on.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I would think. My thing is that if
Speaker 4: you if you're I mean, okay, so establishing the studios.
Speaker 5: Here's the thing though, when I when I answer that
Speaker 5: and let me if I can adjust that answer, I
Speaker 5: was I.
Speaker 2: Was only asking because I know that he has the
Speaker 2: complex up and he's open for business.
Speaker 4: But then I was kind of wondering, like what's step two?
Speaker 2: Is step two now like for future for directors and screenwriters,
Speaker 2: like do they is it a studio in the terms
Speaker 2: of like MGM, like do you is he an option
Speaker 2: to take it to?
Speaker 5: Or is Georgia is.
Speaker 8: Just Georgia stop you from wanting to go down there
Speaker 8: because of their laws and what they do and the
Speaker 8: women's suppression on their bodies and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Because some people are considering that too. I'm just saying
Speaker 3: it is an actor that they.
Speaker 5: True, I don't I can't ask that question. I don't
Speaker 5: know if you know, is the studio in the centuries
Speaker 5: also financing films or is it that?
Speaker 4: Is it just a place to shoot? That's my question.
Speaker 2: I don't know if he was the studio in terms
Speaker 2: of I don't know Warner Brothers or MGM.
Speaker 4: That's what I was trying to ask.
Speaker 3: I don't think he was. I didn't think he was yet.
Speaker 4: So that's just the place to shoot if you want
Speaker 4: to shoot.
Speaker 5: So now, I mean, I don't know what the his
Speaker 5: his his.
Speaker 4: The end game of it all. Okay, I want to vacuum.
Speaker 4: That's all I wanted to do.
Speaker 6: When you did well, kind of following up on that question,
Speaker 6: when you did X and you know, as we talked
Speaker 6: last time, you was like you call call folke up, Like, Yo,
Speaker 6: it's station time, let's get it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 6: Was there ever consideration after that of saying, well, if
Speaker 6: we can come together to do this, why don't we
Speaker 6: keep going? What are some of the challenges in self
Speaker 6: funding and put doing stuff like that?
Speaker 5: The challenge is really most people lose money when you
Speaker 5: invest in the film, okay, and very few of us
Speaker 5: have disposable income where they could just write a check
Speaker 5: and like not even be you know, hurt.
Speaker 4: Just take them losses.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's it's Look, it's not. This thing's been
Speaker 5: a struggle since sixteen nineteen when that first ship lanted
Speaker 5: James thom Virginia. And if history has tost anything, you know,
Speaker 5: it's the struggle continues. We take it by day by day.
Speaker 5: It was like, you're not gonna chop down a redwood
Speaker 5: tree with that first wing. We gotta be John hearing
Speaker 5: like a motherfucker though, right?
Speaker 3: Can I ask you that the Five bloods real quick?
Speaker 3: It's a in the movie.
Speaker 8: It's a picture of Delroy has shown it looked like
Speaker 8: he was. Actually he actually served in the military. Is
Speaker 8: that the case?
Speaker 5: Yeah? That was from American graffeiti too? What?
Speaker 4: Wow? I didn't know if there was an American graffiti too.
Speaker 4: Wait see what we found it? There is such a thing. Yes,
Speaker 4: how come I don't know about this because I've never
Speaker 4: heard America graffiti too?
Speaker 5: Google Google, I am dB sugar.
Speaker 3: Computer too on a computer?
Speaker 5: You know you want to, but he's not talking. Let
Speaker 5: him do it.
Speaker 4: I haven't I haven't seen that.
Speaker 7: I haven't seen that movie, but I have the soundtrack
Speaker 7: for it. So if there's a soundtrack for it in
Speaker 7: my period.
Speaker 8: Real did you use any Vietnamese actors.
Speaker 4: Wow, a more American.
Speaker 5: You're right, everybody was Vietnamese.
Speaker 3: So then okay, so this is this leads to my
Speaker 3: next question.
Speaker 8: Then the scene on the boat with del Roy and
Speaker 8: the god selling the chickens, right, it seemed to me
Speaker 8: did you ever have to have a off camera come
Speaker 8: to Jesus moment with the cast because history is so
Speaker 8: deep in that way and y'all were shooting in Vietnam
Speaker 8: and some of these Vietnamese actors do have a history
Speaker 8: with this war in that way because it was it
Speaker 8: was so you know, it's so emotional part about you
Speaker 8: killed my father and my mother body thought chicken?
Speaker 5: I told I told my brother to use that because
Speaker 5: he didn't speak that much English, but I said, black Gi,
Speaker 5: black Gi.
Speaker 3: Right, Were there real moments about it.
Speaker 5: Was? Because there's history?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean one of the key lines everybody in the
Speaker 5: film is a war never ends.
Speaker 11: And we had a Vietnamese brother, Ben say that line.
Speaker 5: People in America in Vietnam is still deal with this
Speaker 5: war is coming on fifty years from them, fifty years ago.
Speaker 5: Another thing that I learned very quickly that if you're
Speaker 5: in Vietnam and you say the Vietnam War. They say, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: No American War.
Speaker 5: We call it their American War. We did not go
Speaker 5: the motherfucker United States in America. You motherfuckers came here,
Speaker 5: got your ass kicked. And before that, the French came
Speaker 5: here and got the ass kicked.
Speaker 3: You did mention that was mentioned in the movie while
Speaker 3: they speak.
Speaker 5: The French, the French colonized Vietnam. If you, I mean,
Speaker 5: if you look when you get a chance, we get
Speaker 5: a chance, get look at your globe, globe that's cute,
Speaker 5: or you just go to your Google a world map.
Speaker 5: Look how big Vietnam is.
Speaker 4: I'm looking.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, what state you think?
Speaker 5: What's the question? You got it? What state you think
Speaker 5: it's comfortable in size to Vietnam?
Speaker 2: I guess by the looks of it.
Speaker 5: I mean not Texas, for Texas bigger than Vietnam. I'm
Speaker 5: looking one of the smaller states.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is This could be up in New England somewhere.
Speaker 5: Mm hmmm. So just say, like four guests, maybe it's
Speaker 5: the size of the Rhode Island or New Hampshire, Vermont,
Speaker 5: that is the size of Vietnam. They kicked mothers.
Speaker 4: Yea.
Speaker 3: They know when you came to be like Spike Lee.
Speaker 5: Some did, some did, but we made a conscious effort
Speaker 5: in this film not to dehumanize being these people, not
Speaker 5: to make them villains. We treat them with love, respect,
Speaker 5: and we got that in return.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 6: One question I had about your because you say, you
Speaker 6: know war that was the theme?
Speaker 4: You know war never ends?
Speaker 6: Was that a part of the decision to keep the
Speaker 6: main actors the same age and the flashbacks? Uh, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean? And the only one that was
Speaker 6: young was was Chad you know Norman.
Speaker 5: It was thank you? Big question again, that's question I've
Speaker 5: been asked a question a million times already now, so
Speaker 5: I have there. As I said earlier, everybody. Netflix was
Speaker 5: the last person who started to do the film. But
Speaker 5: they said we're doing it for a price, a price
Speaker 5: that you a price. If I to add the dou
Speaker 5: to do the age that the d age actors would
Speaker 5: added another one hundred million dollars.
Speaker 11: To a film.
Speaker 5: Would have to do that one hundred down. That's more
Speaker 5: the whole film car. Another part of this answer and
Speaker 5: complicated answer, is that we had very few days when
Speaker 5: the temperature was not over one hundred degrees. We were
Speaker 5: shooting in the jungles of Thailand, make up aesthetics would
Speaker 5: have melted writing for the right cameras. So with all
Speaker 5: those things I just said, combined with my confidence in
Speaker 5: the telligence of the moving the movie going audience that
Speaker 5: the first time they see it it will be jarn
Speaker 5: But then like that, the light bulb would go and
Speaker 5: you know, off over the head and like, I get it,
Speaker 5: this is a memory. So that is the answer to
Speaker 5: your question.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, My good friend Sarah McDonald who writes for The Undefeated,
Speaker 6: and she gave the Five Bloods good review. She was
Speaker 6: the one that kind of made that point of just
Speaker 6: how that was the way even though it was you know,
Speaker 6: it may have been a budgetarystriction whatever, but that was
Speaker 6: just a way to show that they never left the war,
Speaker 6: like they're still there.
Speaker 5: Yes, And what did Marvin Gate sing? War is hell?
Speaker 4: But win it?
Speaker 5: And I'm not gonna sing it when we start getting
Speaker 5: back together again.
Speaker 11: So I know the questions coming.
Speaker 5: About Marvion Gate. Marvin Gay had an older brother named Franklin.
Speaker 5: He did three tours in Vietnam, three tours. He was
Speaker 5: a radio operator and he was right his brother every week,
Speaker 5: and Marvin never answered one of those others.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 5: And I think a lot of ways that album is
Speaker 5: an answer. It was a lettering never wrote. So Marvin
Speaker 5: is getting a first hand account from his brother who's
Speaker 5: doing three tours of Vietnam. Plus Marvin is in Detroit Motown,
Speaker 5: so they're seeing the buds come back, maimed, fucked up,
Speaker 5: strung on heroin. So all those things it might look,
Speaker 5: I might be wrong. I think those are the things
Speaker 5: that all came together that he gave the world the
Speaker 5: gift of one of the greatest albums ever in my opinion.
Speaker 4: What's going on?
Speaker 5: So Marvin is a character in this movie.
Speaker 2: Did you know from the gate that you were going
Speaker 2: to use that album, that entire record as Yes, now
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do that because it introduces another, yet another
Speaker 2: generation to an album that's about to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary.
Speaker 5: So and another thing is that we did. Another thing
Speaker 5: that we did is that my brother Sanki, who does
Speaker 5: all my still photography and not not still with Talk Records,
Speaker 5: he's behind the scenes. While we were in Thailand, he
Speaker 5: gave me that Acapella birds was I never heard it before?
Speaker 5: M hmm, I never.
Speaker 11: Heard it, had never ever heard of acapella What's going on?
Speaker 5: And once I heard it, I knew we had to
Speaker 5: put it on a scene with Paul as he's on
Speaker 5: his dissent and the depths.
Speaker 2: You know, right, Yeah, I feel like that was your
Speaker 2: That was your living for the City moment from ju
Speaker 2: Jungle Fever.
Speaker 4: That was your Yeah, just using a song.
Speaker 5: Like go to the Tosh.
Speaker 6: Also do one of my favorite scenes where you did
Speaker 6: that is in Girl six, when you use how come
Speaker 6: you don't call me no more?
Speaker 11: Any boardwalk?
Speaker 8: In spite as a I'm gonna get on you with
Speaker 8: it again every time I talk to you, I'm gonna
Speaker 8: just say, as a c Au person, I found it
Speaker 8: very interesting the way you again go more House into.
Speaker 3: Another of yours.
Speaker 5: I just the house history. Though you were absolutely right,
Speaker 5: I do not mention clark Au now it's called back
Speaker 5: on Clark was called Clark College. My maid was that
Speaker 5: even like graduating from Morehouse ELECTUS class of nineteen seventy nine,
Speaker 5: my major, Herb. Eichelberger, taught me he's the one that
Speaker 5: believed in me as a young filmmaker. So I know
Speaker 5: you're absolutely distraught now that read Hastings just gave forty
Speaker 5: million to Morehouse, y'all fort forty million to the United
Speaker 5: College Fund, and clark Au didn't gonna die that the country.
Speaker 4: Was that you're doing.
Speaker 5: Hey, I thought about it like the rest of the world.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, listen though.
Speaker 5: You know why that's special to me, No bullshit. My
Speaker 5: father went to Morehouse. Well, my father was a freshman
Speaker 5: doctor Martin Luther King was a senior. Martin Luther King
Speaker 5: the Third and I are classmates. We both graduated class
Speaker 5: thirty nine. My grandfather went to Morehouse. My mother, who
Speaker 5: is a centophile, she's the one. She's the reason why
Speaker 5: I'm a filmmaker. She went to Spellman. My grandma lived
Speaker 5: one hundred years old. Wow, she went to Spellman. My
Speaker 5: grandmother is a one who's who saved the Social Security
Speaker 5: checks for fifty years for a grand josen for a
Speaker 5: grandch education.
Speaker 11: I was the first born, I had first DIBs.
Speaker 5: My grandmother put me through Morehouse, put me through n YU,
Speaker 5: and gave me the same money. But she's gotta have it.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 5: So that's why I show Love Morehouse and Spellman plus
Speaker 5: the world's grades Hurd. Love with Moses was one year
Speaker 5: ahead of me classes seventy eight.
Speaker 3: Nobody rides out of school like morehouse men and spellman women.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna tell I'm the motherfucking house what all right,
Speaker 9: one day I'll do it for OKAYK got to do it.
Speaker 4: A mirror my pros from me her culture festival. All right, y'all?
Speaker 15: No Bill None who used to teach at Clark and
Speaker 15: Land and where you go? I don't know the house
Speaker 15: And Samuel Jackson Sam, I.
Speaker 3: Think he was about.
Speaker 5: Sam, Sam, Sam and John I mean Sam then Bill
Speaker 5: were classmates some more Hawks.
Speaker 2: When you saw Sam presenting the award, you you kind
Speaker 2: of you already, right.
Speaker 5: I had an inkling, but I didn't want to go
Speaker 5: for the dope bean double cross again. I gotta love
Speaker 5: you so much. I don't want to go for that.
Speaker 4: I wanted going. I look, I was a hit.
Speaker 5: It was a hit. But I've seen that skull bluggery,
Speaker 5: that Agan's subterfuge before.
Speaker 4: Right, we all have. Man, I was I was there before.
Speaker 2: I was there, and that that was That was like
Speaker 2: one of the most electric moments in the audience.
Speaker 3: Man, like watching that and Ruth get one too, Like
Speaker 3: it was.
Speaker 5: Just oh, there was a bunch of us. Yeah, that
Speaker 5: was a good knight for negroes all, not just the
Speaker 5: ones that want.
Speaker 4: Yes. Yeah, it was great. That was a great night.
Speaker 4: What is next for you?
Speaker 2: And how are you preparing for whatever is next for you?
Speaker 5: You know what?
Speaker 11: Another you guys give me nothing A great question.
Speaker 5: I thank you for because it's hard to answer the
Speaker 5: questions that you're like, WTF. OMG. This is the first time.
Speaker 5: If I just had as my mother, my late mother
Speaker 5: will say, sit your skinny, rusty black ass down. I've
Speaker 5: been working non stop.
Speaker 2: She used to have.
Speaker 11: It was eighty six, do the right thing.
Speaker 5: It's gonna be thirty one years old this coming June thirty.
Speaker 5: The film was released the same day as Tim Baton.
Speaker 5: Tim Burton's Batman was between feature films, featured documentaries, short
Speaker 5: films for Michael Jackson, Prince Public Enemy, Miles Davis, Anita Baker.
Speaker 5: You know, a whole bunch of people, and then being
Speaker 5: married twenty six years, my group of wife Tanya, two kids,
Speaker 5: grown kids, this pandemic both and you know there's two.
Speaker 4: Of them, alright me.
Speaker 11: Yeah, Like, sit the fuck down and be still.
Speaker 16: Stop the ripping and running here and ripping running air
Speaker 16: My family, we were. You know, I just went out
Speaker 16: the first two months just to take.
Speaker 5: Out the garbage.
Speaker 4: Wow. Sometimes you just using up.
Speaker 5: Now it's loosen up, you know, ride my bike, spending
Speaker 5: a lot of dollar demonstrations. But I had to be
Speaker 5: still because I want. I wanted to live and I
Speaker 5: don't want to do nothing that's gonna, you know, put
Speaker 5: my family in jeopardy. And when you're just there, you
Speaker 5: think your mind and maybe maybe everybody, some other beautiful
Speaker 5: people might have felt this way too. My mind was
Speaker 5: not racing, and.
Speaker 16: It was like I'm taking this one motherfucking day and
Speaker 16: a motherfucking at time, one day at a time, not
Speaker 16: trying to plan on us.
Speaker 5: We don't know when it's just going to change whatever.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna be still. And I've done a lot
Speaker 5: of reflections. I thought about my brother Chris, who died
Speaker 5: not recently, but you know he was a brother right
Speaker 5: under me. You know, he had an addiction.
Speaker 11: I thought of my mother, who died of liver cancer.
Speaker 5: You saw a crook one I'm wanted. She was forty
Speaker 5: one years old, you know, another sophomore in more house.
Speaker 5: So I've had time to think about It's not just
Speaker 5: all you know, dark stuff. But I've had a lot
Speaker 5: of time to reflect the good and bad, which I
Speaker 5: think has been very beneficial to my growth because I
Speaker 5: just had to shit the fuck down. Hey man, I'm
Speaker 5: trying to be like, you know, like mister.
Speaker 4: No, that's real. No, that's really, that's real.
Speaker 6: Even when at the beginning when you were saying, you know,
Speaker 6: like I'm sixty three years old, like me and my
Speaker 6: wife were even talking about that about how you've always
Speaker 6: been someone who he your output has always been very prolific,
Speaker 6: and so you've always like every year or at least
Speaker 6: every other year, we know, Spike got something coming. And
Speaker 6: then on top of that, your subject matter is always
Speaker 6: timely to what's going on. So it's easy to forget
Speaker 6: because you're always so current. Like you said, he's beginning,
Speaker 6: like yo, this cap been doing this shit for forty years.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 5: People, we want to freeze just like it all right,
Speaker 5: But if I could just say this, and this is
Speaker 5: because I gotta go, but I want to thank you guys.
Speaker 5: But but also another thing I left out I've been
Speaker 5: thinking about. I was, you know, the first time ever
Speaker 5: I'm thinking about my own mortality. Death has been around
Speaker 5: us around me, people have died left and right, and
Speaker 5: it really you know, maybe think about you know, like
Speaker 5: I'm not going to be the fuck here forever, you know.
Speaker 5: And I know it's a cliche, but you know what
Speaker 5: makes a cliche that war times than not, it is
Speaker 5: the truth.
Speaker 11: Bullshit doesn't become a cliche.
Speaker 5: Truth does, in my opinion.
Speaker 17: In fact, we got to enjoy what we got because
Speaker 17: no one knows when that last breath is we're gonna take,
Speaker 17: and nothing is reaffirmed that.
Speaker 5: I mean, you hear that, you hear that, hear that
Speaker 5: he has some bulls that will live ever. But living
Speaker 5: through New York City in this epicenter that changed is
Speaker 5: like I said, nah, that shit is real.
Speaker 11: You gotta we.
Speaker 5: Gotta enjoy this ship while you're here, because this was
Speaker 5: a motherfucking epicenter New York City.
Speaker 11: People dying left and right.
Speaker 5: Funeral homes have motherfucking U haul trucks.
Speaker 13: They're unrefrigerated. People have to call the cops because valley
Speaker 13: fueled fluid and just a stinch is like, just be crazy.
Speaker 13: That's like living Fort Green not right next to Brooklyn Hospital.
Speaker 18: And you see the refrigeration trucks they had they're gone now, yeah,
Speaker 18: but that they had to bring in refrigeration trucks to
Speaker 18: keep the course of the the dead bodies.
Speaker 5: You're on ice.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And the last thing, my brother, I'm gonna sing you
Speaker 5: out because I want to let you know that I love.
Speaker 11: You and it's love, love, love.
Speaker 5: And I think that this is time history that we're
Speaker 5: living through is going to reduce great albums, great plays,
Speaker 5: great movies, great documentaries, great art is going to come
Speaker 5: out of this historic moment we're living in. I believe
Speaker 5: in my heart, amen, that they're great, that they that
Speaker 5: for me, what makes artists great is a God given
Speaker 5: gift and that god even gift is is the connection
Speaker 5: between the heart and the mind. And you watch just
Speaker 5: me cold.
Speaker 11: Because the the the.
Speaker 5: Horrible things have happened, art, great art is going to
Speaker 5: comment on this period we lived.
Speaker 4: Thank you, amen, Thank you very much, Spike Lee.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for your art.
Speaker 2: Not a special Q slive with Spike Lee Bontelo. Fight Yeah, Steve,
Speaker 2: that was a mouthful.
Speaker 4: We got it.
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