Throwback Thursday: Play The Right Thing

This year Do The Right Thing made it onto the American Film Institute's annual "100 Greatest Movies of All Time" list, and Boombox Serenade takes the opportunity to wonder aloud whether or not a single song has ever been wielded so powerfully in a film by a director as "Fight The Power" was by Spike Lee. Throughout Do The Right Thing Public Enemy's unforgettable anthem is played so many times (15, in fact) that by the end of the movie, it's become a character in its own right. That's a difficult directorial trick to pull off without wearing out the impact of the music, but Lee was so radioactive with talent at the time and the song so potent and honest that it actually has the opposite effect—dramatic tension was piled on with each successive spin.

Precious few films have successfully used music to capture the zeitgiest of an era while that era was still happening. The Graduate. Saturday Night Fever. Trainspotting. They're few and far between. Most directors can't manage such soundtracks without benefit of hindsight because most aren't musically adventurous enough to be comfortable with emerging genres, let alone brave enough to use that music to represent something pivotal about their film. Then there are films like Harold and Maude, Magnolia, and Half Nelson that use music of-the-momentreally well, but not as well Lee who unblinkingly captured a particular place and time with a single song. It's impossible to imagine the film without the music of Public Enemy, in fact, because when Lee added Chuck D's big, undeceived voice to the overheated Bed-Stuy scene, it was like lowering a lit match onto a pool of gasoline.  

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me, you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother fuck him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped, plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for 400 years if you check
Don't Worry Be Happy
Was a number one jam
Damn if I say it, you can slap me right here
(Get it) lets get this party started right
Right on, c'mon
What we got to say
Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be

Do The Right Thing was inspired by a real incident in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens, New York where three black men were assaulted by white teenagers. One of the victims, Michael Griffith, was killed when a passing motorist's car ran over him as he was trying to flee his attackers. That happened in 1986. By the time three short years had passed, Spike Lee had stylistically immortalized the incident using classic Greek unities that compressed his storyline into one vibrant, vibrating cube of hostility and deferred dreams. Do The Right Thing is an unforgettable film that hinges on one unforgettable song, and it's all standing the test of time nicely, so do the right thing and queue it up now.

Comments

[teradackly]

HEY MORE POSTS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!