Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Welcome Alec Baldwin and Spike Lake. I've been trying to
Speaker 1: get Spike Lee on this program for a long time.
Speaker 1: Finally we made it happen in front of a live
Speaker 1: audience at this year's t Rebeca Film Festival. The deal
Speaker 1: was we would each engage the other in a discussion
Speaker 1: about one of our favorite movies of all time. Just
Speaker 1: listing Spike Lee's films should be enough to establish his
Speaker 1: place as one of the deans of American movie making.
Speaker 1: Do the right thing. Malcolm X, Jungle Fever, She's got
Speaker 1: to have it. They defined what it means to be
Speaker 1: black in America and help Spike smash through Hollywood's racial
Speaker 1: glass ceiling. And he's still at it with this year's
Speaker 1: festival favorite Black Klansmen, in which I make an appearance
Speaker 1: alongside stars John David Washington and Adam Driver. And now
Speaker 1: our conversation at Spring Studios in New York as part
Speaker 1: of the Rebeca Film Festival. We didn't rehearse any of this.
Speaker 1: First of all, let me just explain to you what
Speaker 1: a pain in the acid is to get him on
Speaker 1: the phone. It is so painful to pull him and
Speaker 1: text him and text him really sunny. He calls me
Speaker 1: back like six, mus what's up? If I see a
Speaker 1: number on my phone, I don't know the number, I
Speaker 1: don't pick up and he has four numbers, tell me.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I want to know first is because
Speaker 1: I think this helps you know these kinds of origins
Speaker 1: help us understand this kind of film appreciation. What was
Speaker 1: movie going in your life when you were young, when
Speaker 1: you were a child, Tell us where you grew up,
Speaker 1: what kind of household you grew up in, and what
Speaker 1: was the whole TV movie dynamics of your consumption of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff when you were a child. I
Speaker 1: even I never knew that you'd even make a film
Speaker 1: growing up. I grew up in the Republic of Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: We were the first black family to move into Cobble Hill,
Speaker 1: which is a predominantly a town in American Navy because
Speaker 1: Copple is right by the docks, and the docks were
Speaker 1: Italian American, and uh, we got called nig a couple
Speaker 1: of times first week, But once my friends sold them,
Speaker 1: weren't a hundred of other black families moving in behind me.
Speaker 1: Then we were just cool after that, so nothe after that.
Speaker 1: And then we my mother decided we gotta stop paying rents,
Speaker 1: so we bought a Brownston on a Fourth Green for
Speaker 1: forty five thousand dollars. They go for four million. Now
Speaker 1: what year was that? Sixty? My father grew up in
Speaker 1: four Queen on St. Jame's Place in Fulton's. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I remember you. Now you're a pain in the ask
Speaker 1: then too, I couldn't get you on the phone back
Speaker 1: at eight either. You were in four Green and sixty
Speaker 1: eight because white flight had happened by then, and people
Speaker 1: will move to Long Island. But what's the first movie
Speaker 1: you saw on the big screen? The first movie I
Speaker 1: can remember my mother took me to see really quick.
Speaker 1: My father hated movies, but he loves sports. I got
Speaker 1: my love of sports from my father. My mother loves movies,
Speaker 1: but my since my father hated movies, I was my
Speaker 1: mother's movie date. The first film I can remember my
Speaker 1: mother took my late mother take me to. She took
Speaker 1: me for Eastern Sunday Race musical, So Bye Bye Birdie.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing though, that film impacted me so
Speaker 1: much I even know it The opening credit sequence would
Speaker 1: do the right thing. Rosie PRIs dancing. That came from
Speaker 1: by by Bertie and Margaret. That's where it came from.
Speaker 1: And I must have I must have been like seven
Speaker 1: eight years old, but it just came out of nowhere?
Speaker 1: Did I mean, this is a cliche, I guess, But
Speaker 1: did that do something to you the first time you
Speaker 1: saw a movie on a big screen? Did you sit
Speaker 1: there and go? Yeah? But I didn't want them. It's
Speaker 1: not like at that moment, but it was not who who?
Speaker 1: Who makes a movie? So growing up, I wanted to
Speaker 1: play a second base for New York Mets, but genetics
Speaker 1: conspired against that happening. That's where I changed over to
Speaker 1: the Yankees. But anyway, I wanted to be a porn star,
Speaker 1: but you didn't have inspired against that too, So I
Speaker 1: and I grew up wanted to be a filmmaker. But
Speaker 1: I remember my mother taking me to see uh mean
Speaker 1: streets when Bunny and Clyde came out. I said, can
Speaker 1: I go? She said, I'm not taking you. I went
Speaker 1: to see Buying Clyde. I had nightmares for two weeks
Speaker 1: because I mean, up to that point, there was never
Speaker 1: violent shown like that, and that that shook me for
Speaker 1: two weeks. There was groundbreaking the pen. But the reason
Speaker 1: why I chose On the Ward from besides is one
Speaker 1: of the greatest films ever, is because I became very
Speaker 1: friendly with Bud Schilberg, the great Great Bud Show. I
Speaker 1: called him up. You know, back then you called people up.
Speaker 1: I called Stanley Dining up, Colcazan up. You get people
Speaker 1: on the phone. People don't realize how much that happens
Speaker 1: in this business. And you know, I was a young filmmaker,
Speaker 1: so you know. And and in fact, I called Billy
Speaker 1: Waller up. He said, come on over. And I had
Speaker 1: any time my go at people. I got my posters too,
Speaker 1: is I got my postes, you know, just the the
Speaker 1: sign but both but But and I we worked on
Speaker 1: the script together, and But lived to be ninety four
Speaker 1: or five. But when he was ninety we wrote a
Speaker 1: script together called Save It's Joe Lewis about this relationship
Speaker 1: between Joe Louis and Max Schmellen and his in In
Speaker 1: the last two years of life, he would call me
Speaker 1: every week and say, Spike, did you get the money yet?
Speaker 1: Did you get the money yet? Because I had promised
Speaker 1: him that I was gonna make this film before we passed.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make that promise happen. But we just couldn't
Speaker 1: get together up. But it's amazing as an epic has
Speaker 1: Hitler Gebels, fdr on the Roosevelt, lenol Horn, Joe Louis,
Speaker 1: Max Schmellon Sugar Ray Robinson. I mean it's it's uh,
Speaker 1: We're gonna get it done one day, you know now
Speaker 1: when you when you talk about it in the same
Speaker 1: is in my life where I would watch movies and
Speaker 1: I thought that movie stars were harvested on another planet
Speaker 1: and they flew them down here or something, you know.
Speaker 1: I I the idea that myself or anybody like me
Speaker 1: could get into the movie business was just absurd, you know,
Speaker 1: to me. And when did that change for you? Meaning
Speaker 1: when did movie making become a direction that you wanted
Speaker 1: to set sailing? Oh? When I went to college. I
Speaker 1: went to Morouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, and my first
Speaker 1: two years the house. My first two years I was
Speaker 1: the C plus D minor student. What was your major?
Speaker 1: I didn't have a major at that point. And so
Speaker 1: before second semest ended ended in my south ways trying
Speaker 1: to go back to New York. But if some of
Speaker 1: my advisor told me had to choose the major when
Speaker 1: I come back in the fall, And I said why
Speaker 1: and my advisors said, because you have exhaust all your electives.
Speaker 1: So I came back to New York and it was
Speaker 1: a summer ninth. There was an infamous summer nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 1: The Yankees won the World Series. The first summer disco
Speaker 1: heat was horrible. Therefore you had the blackout and you
Speaker 1: had David Berkle. It's on the stad so it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Many minutes later I wrote the Corona script with the
Speaker 1: Mike Criol Victor Clochio called Summer sam But anyway, New
Speaker 1: York City was broke that summer. There's a famous Daily
Speaker 1: News front page forward to New York dropped dead. There
Speaker 1: you go, you up to that point. If you had
Speaker 1: your workers permit, you get the job doing something. But
Speaker 1: there were no jobs in New York City and I
Speaker 1: and I didn't want to spend a whole summer playing
Speaker 1: strata matic baseball on my stoop. So at a still
Speaker 1: my friend today, her name is if you had to Johnston,
Speaker 1: she was very smart. She if you go to Stifers
Speaker 1: and you had to be smart. The test for New
Speaker 1: York City was Brooklyn Tech, Science and Stuyverson. Brooklyn Tech
Speaker 1: was it might down the block for me here science
Speaker 1: and stops. She got in the I mean she was smart.
Speaker 1: So one day and I swear my mother's grave this
Speaker 1: this was not a mistake. I was sitting on my
Speaker 1: stoop nothing to do, and the spirit told me, goes
Speaker 1: ce Vieta. So I went to her house. She lived
Speaker 1: at University Towers on on Waverley No. Willoughby and uh
Speaker 1: will it Willoughby and Ashland Cross Street from l I U.
Speaker 1: So she's studying. I mean she's studying the whole summer.
Speaker 1: And so there's a box in the corner of the
Speaker 1: room and I said, what's that. She said, that's a
Speaker 1: Super eight camera. You can have it. I said, was
Speaker 1: an other box? She said, that's the stupid that's the
Speaker 1: cartridge of the Super eight. The goals into the thing,
Speaker 1: says you can have it. I'm gonna be a doctor,
Speaker 1: so I don't need this. She is a doctor. She
Speaker 1: went to Princeton undergrad and with the Harvard Med School.
Speaker 1: So that was not a mistake for me to go.
Speaker 1: We at his house that day so now it had
Speaker 1: so now there's something to do. So I spent the
Speaker 1: whole summer not trying to be a filmmaker, but just
Speaker 1: shooting stuff. So I shot The Blackout. It was the
Speaker 1: first summer discos. Every weekend there was a block party
Speaker 1: in DJs hook them their turntables and speakers to the
Speaker 1: thing and then, uh, it was just a crazy summer.
Speaker 1: So I came back to school in the fall and
Speaker 1: declared my major. That's me a mask mun Case is
Speaker 1: a major. Now more House didn't have that major, so
Speaker 1: I so I took master Cass across the street at
Speaker 1: Clark College. So you had Spellman, Morehouse, Clark College, Atlanta Versity,
Speaker 1: and Morris Brown, these all black institutions really in the
Speaker 1: same Mary in Atlanta. And there's a teacher There's there's
Speaker 1: a professor his name is Dr herbiker Berger, still teaching there.
Speaker 1: And I told him I had this film I just
Speaker 1: shot from footage. I don't know what to do with this, said,
Speaker 1: you make up feel with it. So masthemd cases quickly
Speaker 1: with film, TV, journalism and broadcast, and he said, make
Speaker 1: a documentary. To make a documentary of the film. The
Speaker 1: film end up being called last awesome Brooklyn. I worked
Speaker 1: all semester on it, and then many times when he
Speaker 1: had he had the key to the film lab, and
Speaker 1: twice a week he would stay extra so I could
Speaker 1: spent another four hours edited. And he wasn't getting paid
Speaker 1: for it either extra. Why do you think he did
Speaker 1: that he saw something me. I didn't see it, right.
Speaker 1: What did he see in you that you didn't see?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I never asked him that teaches are
Speaker 1: so important. I mean, I think you're going to somebody
Speaker 1: giving you a hand. Explain that, by the way, because
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to just kiss your butt
Speaker 1: here all day, all night long, but because that's very
Speaker 1: easy to do. I mean, let listen, I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: I don't wanna get emotional here. But like in this business,
Speaker 1: there's just something. I mean, you look at people who
Speaker 1: are talented, and you really it just it humbles you,
Speaker 1: it quiets you. You know, this man is one of
Speaker 1: the greatest movie makers of the last fifty or seventy
Speaker 1: five years in this country. Thank you, Thank you, expands
Speaker 1: one of the greatest filmmakers alive. Thank you ever. And
Speaker 1: so when you that mentorship thing to explain to people,
Speaker 1: which even was news to me up until recently. You
Speaker 1: don't guest teach, you're on the faculty and you teach
Speaker 1: a course every year for how many years? Now, going
Speaker 1: on teams a tenured film professor, you're gonna get a
Speaker 1: paid check. Man fantastic he had paid now. But the
Speaker 1: thing is that both my children went to n y U,
Speaker 1: so that tuition ain't no joke. But my mother was
Speaker 1: a teacher, my late mother, she taught at St. Ann's
Speaker 1: in Brooken Heights on the legendary seven Balls. None of
Speaker 1: my grandmother taught. My grandmother's grandma was a slave. Yes,
Speaker 1: she graduated from Spellman. My mother, my mother graduated from Spellman,
Speaker 1: My grandmother graduated Spellman. My father and grand grandfather and
Speaker 1: grandfather graduated from Warhouse. My father's a freshman. Dr Martha
Speaker 1: Came was a senior martincme the third and our classmates
Speaker 1: the class seventy nine. But my grandmother taught art the
Speaker 1: fifty years in Atlanta, George and fifty years she never
Speaker 1: had one white student because of the Jim Crow laws
Speaker 1: and in in South, specifically in Atlanta and the fifty years,
Speaker 1: white students missed on the ate. Our teacher and my mother,
Speaker 1: my grandmother fifty years saved their social Security checks for
Speaker 1: grandchildren education. So says that was the first grandchild. She
Speaker 1: put me through more house and n y U just
Speaker 1: accumulation of the social Security checks over fifty years. M
Speaker 1: and she gave me the seed money for my my
Speaker 1: thesis film, Joe's Best Side Barbershop We Cut Heads is
Speaker 1: one which wanted due to kemmy ward and a little
Speaker 1: bit money for us. She's gonna have it the first film.
Speaker 1: But but even more important than the money, and we
Speaker 1: gotta go, we gotta talk about the films even more important.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing though, here's what I say when
Speaker 1: I when I speak in public, I always say this,
Speaker 1: parents kill more dreams than anybody, so specifically if those
Speaker 1: dreams that their children have had to do with the arts.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in a very artistic families. So
Speaker 1: when I said my tory, but I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a filmmaker, nobody said, get the funk out of you're crazy.
Speaker 1: No black filmmakers. You know, Melvin was not around anymore.
Speaker 1: I wasn't making films. Ozzie Daves, Oscar Show Oscar Showmen
Speaker 1: dead for many of me the years, but I only
Speaker 1: got encouragement. And so often when a child a young
Speaker 1: adult tells their parents, you know what, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna major in poetry, ballet, dance, photography, whatever it is,
Speaker 1: they're like, now they're black. Parents goes like this, as
Speaker 1: long as your monkey has as black living in my house,
Speaker 1: where are my clothes? Eat my food? We we didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't take out a second more of the house.
Speaker 1: And I mean they got some points, you know, in
Speaker 1: my house that played out like this. I'm going to
Speaker 1: g W to study political science. I go up to
Speaker 1: New York. Long story, but I go my audition for
Speaker 1: the acting program and I get accepted, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to go to the n y U Acting program. And
Speaker 1: I explained to my parents how it's actually gonna cost
Speaker 1: less for me to go to n y U, even
Speaker 1: though it's more expensive school, because I requalified for all
Speaker 1: this New York State based loans and scholarships, you know,
Speaker 1: region scholarship, things that I've forfeited when I went to Washington.
Speaker 1: So I call my family and I say, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave GW. I'm not gonna go to law school. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to n y U and study acting. And
Speaker 1: my mother, I means, she screamed like a heart, like
Speaker 1: like like Jamie Lee Curtis in a horror movie. She
Speaker 1: was like. My mother was like, are you out of
Speaker 1: your mind? Are you insane? She's screaming, and I go, no, no,
Speaker 1: I go listen, I go. It's gonna cost you, guys,
Speaker 1: let's money. And my father, let's hear him out. Let's
Speaker 1: hear him out. Hear him out, Director Spike Lee. He
Speaker 1: also teaches in the graduate film program at n y U.
Speaker 1: And when we return, we'll do some analysis on our
Speaker 1: chosen films. A Place in the Sun and on the Waterfront.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing now,
Speaker 1: more of my conversation in front of a live audience
Speaker 1: at the Tribeca Film Festival with director Spike Lee. Your
Speaker 1: films obviously deal with a lot of themes of racial
Speaker 1: injustice and stuff forth and struggle. Are themes that are
Speaker 1: in your own films? Are they in Waterfront as well? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Amazon Anderson Cooper. When this whole thing was happening, Kaepernick
Speaker 1: and I watched on a ward from Again for the
Speaker 1: million times and the stuff that Kaepernick was saying with
Speaker 1: the same stuff did did. Marlon Brando was saying, I
Speaker 1: want my rights. And you can see the mob was
Speaker 1: the inn at the owners, because you have when you
Speaker 1: have the shape up, had the things that guy was
Speaker 1: giving out. And here here's a motherfucker here in the
Speaker 1: scene to get under work the guy, the steward, whatever
Speaker 1: he has to give you, like a coin. And so
Speaker 1: after Marlon Brando, TERRYM. Lloyd testifies against Lee J. Cobb Friendly,
Speaker 1: Johnny Friendly, he says, fucking, I'm going back to work.
Speaker 1: So he's standing there and they're giving out a coin
Speaker 1: to everybody, and then there's nobody there and there's some rummy,
Speaker 1: some bump who's has his hands over the fire and
Speaker 1: they put in and so I'm saying, the NFL, these
Speaker 1: motherfucker's hired motherfucking quarterbacks who are horrible. So what they
Speaker 1: did the term Lloyd, they're doing the Kaepernick. They were
Speaker 1: I don't want to say the guy's name. The guy
Speaker 1: had retired Chicago Bears quarterback, Go ahead say his name.
Speaker 1: They took him my retirement, gave him a ten million
Speaker 1: dollar contract. He was horrible. Kaepernick still can't get a
Speaker 1: job so it was amazing. I mean, but Schilberg was
Speaker 1: a visionary. And when I saw what they were doing
Speaker 1: that Terry malloy, it was the same thing, and that
Speaker 1: was doing the Kaepernick. I think that there's a lot
Speaker 1: of legend and lore about that film. And you know
Speaker 1: these stories of everybody's heard a million times about Brandon
Speaker 1: doesn't do the off camera for Snicker and all that crap,
Speaker 1: and you know, all that stuff which is not that
Speaker 1: important is the movie about Kazan's Mia Colpa for you know,
Speaker 1: ratting it. I'm glad what I've done to you, John Friendly,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep on doing it, he says, you know
Speaker 1: you know that that no apologies for that. But for me,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, Brandon was someone who was did
Speaker 1: you know Brandon? Yeah, I met Branda time I was
Speaker 1: gonna do I was in this wheel of my life
Speaker 1: where c you know, CBS was gonna pay people big
Speaker 1: money to do these m ow's, the old m o
Speaker 1: W we're gonna do. We did. I did street Car
Speaker 1: on Broadway, which we wound up doing on a for TV.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no that, but we do we
Speaker 1: do a street car and brought we do on TV.
Speaker 1: But that was a waste of time. But they paid
Speaker 1: everybody a lot of money. But like, why do it
Speaker 1: for TV when it's in the in the movie, his movie?
Speaker 1: And so I go see him because they want to
Speaker 1: do Canton a hut tin roof and they want him
Speaker 1: to play Big Daddy, but they're not going to insure him.
Speaker 1: Long story short, as I go to his house, there's
Speaker 1: a true story. I go to his house up on
Speaker 1: Mulholland and I go there to beg him to do Canton,
Speaker 1: notts and roof if they will ultimately insure him, which
Speaker 1: they wouldn't, And I mean, I'll do my my my
Speaker 1: tepid Brando impersonation. But I said, uh, I said, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I you know, one thing led to another.
Speaker 1: I had lunch with her for four hours, and I said, uh,
Speaker 1: uh you know, I did street Car on Broadway. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, like it was like six or seven years
Speaker 1: before I heard about that from some friends of mine
Speaker 1: that you did that. I heard you were very good
Speaker 1: or not yes, And I heard you were very funny.
Speaker 1: And I wish I had done more of that because
Speaker 1: it's a very funny part and the character of Fanley
Speaker 1: is very funny and I wish I had found more
Speaker 1: of the humor myself. And there's a pause, and I went,
Speaker 1: but it worked out pretty well for you just to
Speaker 1: say it. Woun't you say? I mean, I mean, I
Speaker 1: mean it went okay. Don't you think for how it
Speaker 1: went over, you know, in the for the public, and uh,
Speaker 1: but it's uh, I met him just that one time,
Speaker 1: and uh, but what you see, he's interesting to me
Speaker 1: because there's a couple of guys. I mean, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: talk briefly about it from the actor's standpoint, which which
Speaker 1: I can't help. But you know, but Gina was obviously
Speaker 1: a big beacon for me. And there's those moments. There's
Speaker 1: always a moment, uh, you know, John Mandolfice in the
Speaker 1: hospital and Serpico has got the bullet hole in his
Speaker 1: face and John Mandow puts the gold shield on him
Speaker 1: and he doesn't want the gold helped to become a detective,
Speaker 1: and finally he gets it in Macino, just he erupts
Speaker 1: into this moment, this momentary sob this gasp of agony
Speaker 1: for just a moment of his suffering, and I just
Speaker 1: thought to myself, this is why I want al maybe
Speaker 1: want to be an actor as much as anybody, as
Speaker 1: much as anybody, but Gina was the one that maybe
Speaker 1: one when he was one of them, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: dog Day Surprico was one of my favorites. But and
Speaker 1: Brando to Brando of course gets into that zone where
Speaker 1: he doesn't care. You know, he's a prodigy and he
Speaker 1: puts all the pieces together when he's twenty four years old.
Speaker 1: Brando did a streetcar and brobery when it was twenty four.
Speaker 1: I did it when I was thirty four. He I
Speaker 1: never met him. You never did call me up two
Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and uh, I'm not gonna do imitational.
Speaker 1: But he wanted me to do a film a Native Americans.
Speaker 1: And I've never heard from after that. Well he yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then I found lady. He would call people late,
Speaker 1: but Tidy got my number and I unbelieve it was
Speaker 1: him at first. But my favorite line he said to
Speaker 1: me was I sit in his house and I'm terrified
Speaker 1: with him. I'm terrified, terrified. I meet people who are
Speaker 1: my peers, you know, and my generation of actors, and
Speaker 1: I admire some of them incredibly, but it's different when
Speaker 1: you meet Kirk Douglas or Gregory Peck and some of
Speaker 1: these guys I met. I mean, I was like, I
Speaker 1: literally pissed my pants when I met Gregory Peck and
Speaker 1: uh like almost literally and uh um. And then I'll
Speaker 1: never forget. I'm in Brando's house and he said to me,
Speaker 1: he says, he says, you know, you and I are
Speaker 1: like two dogs that are sniffing each other. He said,
Speaker 1: you're sniffing me and I'm sniffing you. And he said,
Speaker 1: and oh god, oh god, I hate that. I hate that.
Speaker 1: He said, So you say whatever you want to say,
Speaker 1: and I'll say whatever I want to say. I mean,
Speaker 1: just really, he just didn't want anybody to play him.
Speaker 1: He hated that, you know, I mean, and it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was an amazing day. I have a
Speaker 1: day I spent with him now. Um So in Waterfront.
Speaker 1: One of the other things I love about this film
Speaker 1: is that is that you know, Kazan, having directed in
Speaker 1: the theater, he knew that you had to set the
Speaker 1: table with every detail in terms of the acting in
Speaker 1: their performances. That there was one week link in the chain.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Fred Gwynn when I later wanted to
Speaker 1: play Herman Munster with a small role Lee J. Cobb
Speaker 1: and one of his greatest roles. One of the great
Speaker 1: great great actors in history, Lee J. Cobb, Steiger, great
Speaker 1: great actor Maori s her FIRSTRMORI sat of course. I
Speaker 1: mean the the acting is superlative from one end to
Speaker 1: the other. In that cast. It's it's mind blowing. It's
Speaker 1: and and uh two ton Tony Galento. You know it
Speaker 1: was Bud that got all those Xbox Boxers in the
Speaker 1: film because he knew them. Yeah, I mean, just the
Speaker 1: acting is breathtaking. But also what I what I love
Speaker 1: is that. Uh. Also what I love is it it
Speaker 1: so nothing on the screen really in terms of set design,
Speaker 1: in terms of costume it's it literally is the closest
Speaker 1: I've ever seen to a motion picture that behaves like radio,
Speaker 1: where you only focused on the ideas. You're not thrown
Speaker 1: by a lot of pizzazz and a lot of shots
Speaker 1: and a lot of it's so straight ahead and so honest.
Speaker 1: You as a filmmaker when you first saw the film,
Speaker 1: what did you think of it as a movie? How
Speaker 1: you put together a movie? I loved it, and I
Speaker 1: gotta give love the Lennon Bernstein score amazing and for
Speaker 1: me it is one. I know, we gotta get to
Speaker 1: your your selection. But what it has for one of
Speaker 1: the most amazing endings of the movie with the score,
Speaker 1: and they brought in James Wang Han the greats and
Speaker 1: photographer to be in the roller skates. Boris Kaufman was
Speaker 1: the cinematographer. But you see they brought in James wang
Speaker 1: How I didn't know that he did that shot. Wow,
Speaker 1: that's amazing. Brando's peel v as he's walking towards the
Speaker 1: guy and you see everybody goes and stumbles in. Everybody
Speaker 1: goes in behind him and they see the gate clothes
Speaker 1: and you see, uh yeah, called Maldon and you recently
Speaker 1: walk out. I mean that that and a lot of
Speaker 1: great lines in that movie that uh um. I still
Speaker 1: quote Brando whenever my wife would say to me. You know,
Speaker 1: she'd said to me, you know, when are you gonna
Speaker 1: take me to dinner or whatever? The line buzz And
Speaker 1: you know, Brando's got the line in the in the
Speaker 1: bar with the gun and he says, it's none of
Speaker 1: your business. You have to say that line of people
Speaker 1: like that will not work in the Lee household. Let
Speaker 1: me tell you that it's none of your business, one
Speaker 1: of your your own business, Lewis Lee. Uh. Now, now
Speaker 1: another person in this film who I thought was that
Speaker 1: I really was taken by was the art director. You
Speaker 1: know what I do work I do on TCM and
Speaker 1: things like that where I get into these details. Richard Day,
Speaker 1: who did the art direction on this film, was nominated.
Speaker 1: I think I don't have the statistics in front of me.
Speaker 1: He was nominated for like nine Academy Awards and won
Speaker 1: many Academy Awards for for a career that spanned from
Speaker 1: Dark Angel and Dodsworth and dead End in the thirties
Speaker 1: and to how Green was My Value? And then it
Speaker 1: goes onto street Car and Waterfront in in the in
Speaker 1: the in the fifties, and this guy one oscars over
Speaker 1: the arc of like a two decades and uh. And
Speaker 1: of course Leonard Bernstein score, which uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: New York Philharmonic has a program that I'm the co
Speaker 1: producer I called the Art of the Score, which we
Speaker 1: played the music. I have to picture, particularly films that
Speaker 1: have classical repertoire, with Kubrick being the uh, the ultimate
Speaker 1: example of that, and showing films like you went to
Speaker 1: Science say again, went the Bronx very exactly exactly Kubrick,
Speaker 1: you know two thousand and one, which we're showing again
Speaker 1: for the second time next year, Barry Linded and so forth.
Speaker 1: But we've also played films where to have they just
Speaker 1: have lush, non classical score. Although burn Steins part of
Speaker 1: that world, and we showed Waterfront and and the Philharmonic
Speaker 1: played Waterfront In said though he didn't like the way
Speaker 1: he wrote more music than was put in. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: he wasn't happy with the way now turn out. Can
Speaker 1: we talk about Shelley Winters. You Go, You Go is
Speaker 1: amazing in a place in the sun, and when I
Speaker 1: saw her role, automatically automatically thought about her and Night
Speaker 1: of the Hunter. It's almost like the same, this magic
Speaker 1: woman that just can't get it right and with the
Speaker 1: wrong guy, and she got murdered. In both films. Here's
Speaker 1: Cliff gleaming with his beauty and she's gleaming with her beauty.
Speaker 1: But the acting of Shelley Winters, her performance is unbelievable
Speaker 1: in this movie. She's incredible, But there are very few people.
Speaker 1: You can't shoot two people this close. And the famous
Speaker 1: kissing scene between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. You can't
Speaker 1: shoot two people that close and hold the camera that
Speaker 1: close for too long unless you have two perfect looking people.
Speaker 1: And in this film you have the you have the
Speaker 1: most beautiful man, or one of them that ever lived
Speaker 1: in the history of the movies, and the most beautiful woman.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's like a cinematic like a confection,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, in terms of the delight you
Speaker 1: feel from watching these people. The scene when they meet
Speaker 1: and he's shooting pool at the party and she walks in.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there's there's so much for the eye.
Speaker 1: There's so much beauty in this film and just flat
Speaker 1: out uti between these two people. And then beyond that
Speaker 1: is this horrible drama of what happens to to him
Speaker 1: and to Shelley Winter. There's no spoiler alert here, but
Speaker 1: it's this film. The first time I ever saw this film,
Speaker 1: I remember he's on a television I think. I mean
Speaker 1: a lot of these films I saw on TV because
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, Channel nine, right there you go.
Speaker 1: I mean, people, I always say the same tired thing
Speaker 1: all the time about this, but you know, no HBO,
Speaker 1: no VS, VCRs. When I was a kid, it was
Speaker 1: Channel eleven, Channel five, and Channel uh nine would make
Speaker 1: licensing agreements with a studio. Probably i'd of a cycle.
Speaker 1: Do you remember, Okay, I'm gonna come out a million
Speaker 1: dollar movie with the theme from Gone with the Wind.
Speaker 1: So I see this movie on TV and I remember, like,
Speaker 1: it's not even about sexuality, I don't think, but just
Speaker 1: kind of sitting there with my mouth up and going,
Speaker 1: oh my god. You know, I think I'd probably kill
Speaker 1: Shelley Winters for Elizabeth Taylor too. And that's not a
Speaker 1: hard choice, but that but that movie doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: hear you've got the guy though they both played that.
Speaker 1: I mean, Elizabeth Taylor was a breathtaking actress, and and
Speaker 1: and and Clift was it was it was a brilliant actor.
Speaker 1: And then you see the juxtaposition between Sheldon win Is,
Speaker 1: you know, a lower lower class and you know that
Speaker 1: feels really about classism. Even though Montgomery is Eastman, he's
Speaker 1: like not really part of the real family, so he's
Speaker 1: trying to get up the ladder. Two, I have to
Speaker 1: take advantage of you being here for this kind of thing. Now,
Speaker 1: what do you do when you direct the film? Because
Speaker 1: they always say that the directors then and now. It's
Speaker 1: always been the same that they cast. Well, you try
Speaker 1: your best to get who you want for the role.
Speaker 1: You have a dream cast, and you try to get
Speaker 1: them in terms of their availability, and there there there
Speaker 1: there their desire to be in the film, and can
Speaker 1: you afford them, and so all those things come together,
Speaker 1: which I want you to speak about for people to
Speaker 1: understand what an extraordinarily difficult thing that is to do.
Speaker 1: I meaning, you're you're gonna make a film, Spike Lee
Speaker 1: is gonna make a film, and you're gonna have anybody
Speaker 1: in your films. People are begging to work with you,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you don't get who you want in the film. True. Well,
Speaker 1: since we are here at the Tribeca Film Festival, the
Speaker 1: role of sal I offered to Mr de Niro, You
Speaker 1: want to do it, that son of a bitch. No,
Speaker 1: I think it's Daniel. You got nominated, and I think that,
Speaker 1: which I mean, I love Bob and I wanted my film,
Speaker 1: but de Nirol might have tilted. It was meant to
Speaker 1: be asemble piece do the right thing. You mean you
Speaker 1: had two taro, I mean every was in it, but
Speaker 1: no one's really Richard Edson the Great Ruby, d Ozzy Davis.
Speaker 1: You no but Sam Sam Samuel Jackson and he was
Speaker 1: saying back then, and Carlo Jean Casposito, Rosie Perez. That's
Speaker 1: her first film is Martin Lawrences first film, Robin Harris
Speaker 1: first film, The Late Robin Harris. So it's been my
Speaker 1: experience things happen for the most part the way it
Speaker 1: should be, because that's not the only time where I
Speaker 1: wanted someone and I didn't get them and it turned
Speaker 1: out for the best because I got somebody who just
Speaker 1: fits better. So and it also like its like a
Speaker 1: sports team, you know. I mean one year the Lakers
Speaker 1: head like by all stars starting, they were terrible because
Speaker 1: it was no there's no chemistry and everybody's gonna be starting.
Speaker 1: Everybody can't be like it just needs to come together.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because you hear that across the board. You
Speaker 1: have an ensemble of people and if you change one
Speaker 1: little thing, it would upset the now. Now without naming names,
Speaker 1: because one of my goals into you know, embarrassing anybody.
Speaker 1: But when you make films as a as a director,
Speaker 1: and your films are dramas, they're they're they're they're acting,
Speaker 1: is at the four. You don't do action films and
Speaker 1: space movies and all this other crap. I'm sorry, I
Speaker 1: didn't mean that. Um Um, what I meant was, uh,
Speaker 1: because we love space movie, let's face. But when you're directing,
Speaker 1: what is directing performance for you? Now? Because like, you
Speaker 1: bring these people in, and you bring people who are
Speaker 1: going to play the role, and you you assume they're
Speaker 1: pretty good to go. But what happens when it's not working?
Speaker 1: How involved are you involved? And like walking up to people,
Speaker 1: take them aside and go, hey man, this is what
Speaker 1: I need in the scene. Yeah, but you can't have
Speaker 1: to be done you know, in a whisper if you
Speaker 1: do that, I felt you're gonna lose actor, even if
Speaker 1: you take him aside and do it. Know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: It has to be done private exactly. I agree with you.
Speaker 1: Oh no, it should be private, you know. So you
Speaker 1: really here's the thing, don't you try to head that
Speaker 1: stuff off in rehearsal. You can't be on the on
Speaker 1: the day while you're shooting hundred of people, you know,
Speaker 1: crew members, and you're discussing the character and the ark
Speaker 1: all that stuff. That stuff has to be worked out
Speaker 1: in rehearsal. But sometimes whether I'm having a bad dare
Speaker 1: actor having a bad day, things that happen. You're just
Speaker 1: trying to go through it, but and make sure that
Speaker 1: at the end we're done that we talked. So you
Speaker 1: gotta get you gotta work that shipped out so it's squashed,
Speaker 1: done with and you could continue in good spirits. I'm
Speaker 1: reminded of my dear, dear friend who passed away, Marvin Worth.
Speaker 1: You know, Marvin Bruduce Malcolm X. Give me an example.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's one producers who actually contribute to help you
Speaker 1: make the movie you want to make. Marvin bought the
Speaker 1: rights to the autobiography of Malcolm X, as told by
Speaker 1: Alex Haley. I mean really really many years ago, and
Speaker 1: he's been trying to make it. Set lamed a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of people. One time, Richard Pryor supposed to play him,
Speaker 1: and he said, he sent me letters saying you want
Speaker 1: to be involved as film, So I never I never
Speaker 1: got the letters. So then I was reading the papers
Speaker 1: that Denzel Washington was gonna play Malcolm X. He had
Speaker 1: already done the play a Broadway When Chickens Come When
Speaker 1: Chickens Come Home, The roost and the director was gonna
Speaker 1: be Norman Jewison, and I said to myself self, hold
Speaker 1: the funk up. Yeah, and Norman great director in the
Speaker 1: Heat and the Night. I mean he's done many, many
Speaker 1: fine films. And I just began to talk about a
Speaker 1: little bit and then Marven Worth called me, says, Spike,
Speaker 1: stop talking. Let's have you and Norman sit down, and
Speaker 1: so we we met. I mean, this is not a
Speaker 1: new story, it's old. And uh, Norman want to note
Speaker 1: why I want to do it? And I told him
Speaker 1: and he gracefully said, okay. He didn't have to do that.
Speaker 1: He had the gig. He was a director, he was
Speaker 1: the one the Marvel Worth chose and also Warner Brothers.
Speaker 1: So I've always had the respect for Mr Jewison because
Speaker 1: he could have said, fuck you, Spike, I don't care
Speaker 1: who you are. I'm directing this feel. But there are
Speaker 1: producers and this is I guess what my question is,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people that that's an intangible for
Speaker 1: a lot of people. What producers do beyond, as they say,
Speaker 1: bringing a vital element to the table, the script, the star,
Speaker 1: the money from the studio. They've got the juice with
Speaker 1: the studio, what have you. But there are producers who
Speaker 1: have actually have they've helped you make your films. If
Speaker 1: they've they've contributed to man, there's no way pout. I've
Speaker 1: been involved. I was directed Malcolm X without the late
Speaker 1: great Marvin Worth. I went to a screening. Marvin invited
Speaker 1: me to a screening, uh at the Academy in uh,
Speaker 1: not the DJ but the Academy, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the great great screening rooms in all of Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: which is saying a lot. And then we went to
Speaker 1: that screening of Malcolm X there and uh, I gotta say,
Speaker 1: it's one of your greatest films. That's a great, great film,
Speaker 1: Malcolm X. You had a great job. All that goes
Speaker 1: to Mr Denzel Washington. I know we're talking all the films.
Speaker 1: I have to just say this real quick because tomorrow
Speaker 1: let's see Denzel Washington. Dad the opening of Life coming
Speaker 1: coming four three curtain call. It's like a nine right, ye,
Speaker 1: not that long. But people ask me all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, we uh, Denzel more better Malcolm X. He
Speaker 1: got game inside man. So it's been a minute. But
Speaker 1: Denzel people asked me about his performance. He prepared a
Speaker 1: year before. He told his agent, don't give me any
Speaker 1: more work, learned to praying Arabic, speaking Arabic, learning to
Speaker 1: read the Koran, cut out pork, cut out alcohol, because
Speaker 1: he under Denzel understands that just sounded like somebody or
Speaker 1: looking like that's just surface and he and he knew
Speaker 1: that if he did the job need to be done,
Speaker 1: that Malcolm's spirit will come into him. I put my
Speaker 1: hand on a stack of Bibles. There was a scene.
Speaker 1: All the speeches in the film were Malcolm's words, and
Speaker 1: there was one speech. I mean, he was killing it
Speaker 1: and I'm looking at him. I got the mom to
Speaker 1: him looking at Ernest right here, my great cinematograher, Ernest Dickinson.
Speaker 1: So I see that, to see him looking at the sides.
Speaker 1: And the scene is about the end. Some great called
Speaker 1: cut and he keeps going, we're shooting film, and he
Speaker 1: went off another two minutes and finally Ernest a Spike.
Speaker 1: We ran out. So I woke up to Denzel. He's
Speaker 1: almost like in a daze. I said, d what was that?
Speaker 1: So what are you doing? He said, Spike, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't tell you what I just said. That ship
Speaker 1: can't happen if you don't prepare for it. He worked
Speaker 1: a year and and and asked anybody was on the
Speaker 1: set that day? We thought we saw Malcolm Front. Do
Speaker 1: you know? You know what I love about that film? Also,
Speaker 1: it's tough sometimes if you play if the film calls
Speaker 1: for an actress, a woman to play that role of
Speaker 1: the wife of the the you know, it's a supporting role.
Speaker 1: And uh, what I love was I thought, if Angela
Speaker 1: La Bassett was my wife, nothing I couldn't do either,
Speaker 1: you know, and brought it. She was so wanted. Angela
Speaker 1: Bassett is such a great actress and she's so wonderful
Speaker 1: on that film. So I understand that we're gonna take
Speaker 1: some questions. You know, what's up? Spoke? My name is Chris,
Speaker 1: I'm from Virginia, and I just wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: what do you think of Black Panther? My brother, I've
Speaker 1: seen it four times me too. I look at the
Speaker 1: world now differently before Black Panther and at the Black
Speaker 1: Panther that that should change everything, especially for people of color. Now,
Speaker 1: wait a second, I mean I think in these times,
Speaker 1: in these modern times where we're trying to all be
Speaker 1: more sensitive and more inclusive, don't you want to know
Speaker 1: what I thought a black panther? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: want to ask me? Go ahead, I was actually gonna
Speaker 1: ask you about Infinity Wars and yeah, my brother, you
Speaker 1: bought the catsups. You know it was the down. We're
Speaker 1: give us the next question. Next question, can you tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about your new movie, The Black
Speaker 1: Clansman and what that's based on. The Black Clans was
Speaker 1: based on the book my Man Hair is in It.
Speaker 1: Ron Stalwarf was the first after American policeman in Carrell Springs.
Speaker 1: He ended up infiltrating the clan reading the paper, and
Speaker 1: the clan put it at in paper when we need
Speaker 1: new members. So ron Stalward thinks as a joke, you
Speaker 1: know it's a Google. So she calls up and thinking
Speaker 1: as a joke, he leaves. They don't pick up as
Speaker 1: a voicemails. He leaves his real name and phone number,
Speaker 1: and the clan calls back and said, we want you
Speaker 1: to come down for inter of you. So since he's
Speaker 1: an African American, he can't really show up for the
Speaker 1: inter of you, so he has to sin, my man,
Speaker 1: is that a Boston Red Sox hat? There? Thank you?
Speaker 1: Row seven twelve, Row seven that be oh boy, So
Speaker 1: he has to get a white police officer to play him.
Speaker 1: That's Adam dry Her And so we're in official competition
Speaker 1: that can and it opens August tenth, so check it out.
Speaker 1: And who plays the lead? The lead is played by
Speaker 1: John David Washington, Denzel's eldest son. Denzel's son. You might
Speaker 1: have seen him in Ballers. We have time for one more,
Speaker 1: one more um in the scope of all of your projects,
Speaker 1: what is the work that has been most transformative and
Speaker 1: what is the legacy that you hope to leave. She
Speaker 1: was actually looking at you. She pretended it was for
Speaker 1: both of us, but she was looking right at you
Speaker 1: when she said that it's okay, It's okay. I would
Speaker 1: say I did a documentary called Full Little Girls, which
Speaker 1: is about the bombing of the nine three Birmingham Church,
Speaker 1: the sixth Street Baptist Church, and Broma, Obama. Full of
Speaker 1: girls were killed. Jago who were in the and FBI
Speaker 1: knew who did it a week after. One of the
Speaker 1: guy's name was Donna Mine Bob. His nickname was Dna
Speaker 1: night Bob. And for many years the case was cold
Speaker 1: and before the film opened at the film form, Karen
Speaker 1: Cooper and a couple of days before the open the
Speaker 1: FBI called me and they said, want to see the film.
Speaker 1: The day after the film opened, they reopened that case.
Speaker 1: After many, many years, they went to trial. It was
Speaker 1: Motherfucker's died in prison. True story. They they killed, murder
Speaker 1: those full little girls and just went about their lives,
Speaker 1: you know, and they died in I think I don't
Speaker 1: know how many wanted to, but they died in prison. Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is gonna sound corny and sound stupid.
Speaker 1: When I was on my phone by the way a
Speaker 1: moment ago, trying to look up something about him, and
Speaker 1: my wife, who's here, texted me and said, put your
Speaker 1: phone down. She literally texted me, she wrote, enough with
Speaker 1: the phone. My legacy is not really that much about Honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't really think about the work I do that much.
Speaker 1: It comes and goes. It's sand castles, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the ocean comes. It's the moment you have with people.
Speaker 1: I'm doing The Edge with Tony Hopkins, and he and
Speaker 1: I would have lunch together and we would do dueling
Speaker 1: Richard Burton impersonations together over lunch. And I'll never forget
Speaker 1: that to the day I die, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: work with him, and he called me recently I had
Speaker 1: me comeing to a movie with him, and it was
Speaker 1: it was really, I mean it was. We did one
Speaker 1: day I shot this little thing. I won't give it away,
Speaker 1: but what a great honor it was to get good.
Speaker 1: I did a movie with Ed Norton. Ed directed this
Speaker 1: wonderful movie mother Lis Brooklyn. I'm in this crowd with
Speaker 1: people I worship, you know, uh Cherry Jones and Connavali
Speaker 1: and uh Willem to poe him on the set with
Speaker 1: him going oh man, this is what it's all about.
Speaker 1: You know. To me, it's who you work with. I
Speaker 1: got to do a Good Shepherd with Bob Denier would
Speaker 1: walk up to me and uh Matt Damon and he
Speaker 1: would talk to me, and literally, after like thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: I would I mean, I couldn't hear him. I went deaf.
Speaker 1: Oh the movie starts screening it in my head and
Speaker 1: he talked to me, give me the direction. I look
Speaker 1: at my go. I'm sorry because you repeat that. I
Speaker 1: wasn't listening to a word you said. Just now, Hey,
Speaker 1: look at me go. You're very good, Alec, very good
Speaker 1: to be with those people, to be with them, And
Speaker 1: with that in mind, would you all please join me
Speaker 1: in thanking our guests. One of the greatest movie makers
Speaker 1: in history. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Spike Lee's
Speaker 1: Black Klansmen will be in theaters August tenth. I'm Alec
Speaker 1: Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing, M