Spike Lee (Contemporary Film Directors) - Softcover

McGowan, Todd

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0252079612 ISBN 13: 9780252079610

Publisher: University of Illinois Press, 2014

Synopsis

Since the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, Spike Lee has established himself as a cinematic icon. Lee's mostly independent films garner popular audiences while at the same time engaging in substantial political and social commentary. He is arguably the most accomplished African American filmmaker in cinematic history, and his breakthrough paved the way for the success of many other African Americans in film.

In this first single-author scholarly examination of Spike Lee's oeuvre, Todd McGowan shows how Lee's films, from She's Gotta Have It through Red Hook Summer, address crucial social issues such as racism, paranoia, and economic exploitation in a formally inventive manner. McGowan argues that Lee uses excess in his films to intervene in issues of philosophy, politics, and art. McGowan contends that it is impossible to watch a Spike Lee film in the way that one watches a typical Hollywood film. By forcing observers to recognize their unconscious enjoyment of violence, paranoia, racism, sexism, and oppression, Lee's films prod spectators to see differently and to confront their own excess. In the process, his films reveal what is at stake in desire, interpersonal relations, work, and artistic creation itself.

About this title

Book Description:

The filmmaker's style of excess, as revealed through an examination of the history and art of his films

About the Author:

Todd McGowan is associate professor of English at the University of Vermont and author of Out of Time: The Ethics of Atemporal Cinema and The Fictional Christopher Nolan.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0252079612
• ISBN 13: 9780252079610
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 184