Do the Right Thing (1989)

Spike Lee mentions a curious thing in his Do the Right Thing commentary: white folk tend to be more concerned over the destruction of Sal's Famous Pizzeria, and whether Mookie (Lee himself) acted rightly in attacking it, than in the death of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn). For me, at least, that was true.

He seems to find it sickening: the store is just property; Raheem is a human being. Don't you have a heart? What I don't understand is how he can make that argument when he wrote the scene following, where Sal (Danny Aiello) sits in front of the burned-out husk and describes the way he built it up with his own two hands, or the scene earlier when he counters Pino's (John Turturro) racist fear-mongering by telling him that he's been in this neighbourhood for twenty-five years; the young people were raised on his pizza and they'll never turn on him.

It's not that Raheem is a big, scary black guy, as one of the other commentators suggests; it's that he and Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and Mookie go some way towards proving Pino right. The loss of the store is the community ruptured, turning inwards upon itself, and you have to wonder if it's ever going to heal.

There's plenty of blame to go around, though, which is rather the point. One of the film's strongest sequences is a montage of actors from different racial groups spewing racist bile about one another: it isn't a black problem; it's a people problem. Things escalate, and the heat makes them worse. Pride gets in the way: can't back down, can't lose face.

It's thought-provoking and frighteningly real. Don't miss this one.