Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino: A war with words
By Jerry Saravia
Filmmaker Spike Lee has done it again - he has attacked filmmaker Quentin Tarantino over his controversial new film, "Django Unchained," a "southern" (not a western) about slavery - a controversial subject that hardly elicits any cinematic interest in Hollywood. Lee has called out on the film and states the following: "I cant speak on it cause I'm not gonna see it," Lee said in an interview with VIBETV. "All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors. That's just me...I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else." On twitter he further stated "American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western.It Was A Holocaust.My Ancestors Are Slaves.Stolen From Africa.I Will Honor Them."
Lee had previously berated Tarantino for the 39 or more uses of that dreaded N-word in 1997's "Jackie Brown." Here is the interesting factor: back in 1996, I had the pleasure of attending a Spike Lee talk at Trenton State College (now renamed the College of New Jersey) and he mentioned Tarantino's brief role as a filmmaker in Lee's "Girl 6." Lee said that Quentin wanted to make the N-word a less potent word, a word that could be said without causing a riot. To sum up, Lee certified that after talking to the "Pulp Fiction" filmmaker, Tarantino would no longer be using that racial epithet in his films. Clearly Tarantino did not listen and the word was not only used repeatedly within the first half-hour of "Jackie Brown," it has apparently been used ad nauseam in "Django Unchained."
My issue with Spike Lee is that you can't call a movie disrespectful, regardless of subject matter, unless you have seen it. And you certainly can't call it a Sergio Leone version of slavery if you only heard about it through the critics. From the reviews I've read, it sounds like it has some rough and savage scenes of slaves beaten to a pulp, either by slave masters or fighting among themselves. Perhaps the issue Spike has is that a white Italian filmmaker is using slavery as a subject in revenge fantasy mode (just like Tarantino had in using Nazis for the revisionist "Inglorious Basterds"). Or maybe he wished a black filmmaker had taken charge of the material (Lee had expressed opposition to Steven Spielberg as the choice for adapting Alice Walker's "Color Purple," and had expressed dismay over Norman Jewison's name floating around to direct "Malcom X" which of course Lee directed instead). There is also a curious statement made by Lee to "Django" star Jamie Foxx that could be construed as a blessing for having worked on "Django" where Lee said, "It looks like y'all are getting it." (This is stated in the new issue of "Vibe" magaze with three of the film's stars on the front cover).
I can't say if Spike Lee would ever tackle slavery on screen but my gut feeling is no. I just think that such a film like "Django Unchained" would merit a viewing first before decrying it. It's not like we are talking about a new sequel to "Deuce Bigelow." For better or worse, a new Tarantino film demands our attention. If Lee used to watch the execrable "Temptation Island" on TV a few years back, I think he can make time for Tarantino's new film and then tell us what he really thinks.
