The film that launched Spike Lee's career also immediately showcased his brand of wry wit and attention to detail. Almost two decades after When the Levees Broke came out, it remains an enormously important documentary and a crucial account of one of the U.S.'s worst recent natural disasters made even worse by the people in power. While he pours empathy upon those affected, he has none to spare (and righteously so) for officials, particularly George Bush and his administration's incompetence and lack of compassion in their crisis response. He talks to locals, community leaders, journalists, and politicians about what went down in the storm's aftermath, his camera and editing choices never flinching from the inhumane horrors of neighborhoods in peril. Lee channels the spirit of the city, soundtracking the film to NOLA jazz and tapping local artists to lend their voices.
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Spike Lee knows exactly how to prod a story to get his viewers to direct their anger at society's political failures without spoon-feeding them, and his Emmy-winning four-part HBO docuseries about the governmental bungles at every level and its human impact during and after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans will make your blood boil. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) A prescient piece that got Lee and his crew kicked off shooting at real HBCUs due to worries about how they'd be portrayed before wrapping at Morris Brown College, School Daze woke up audiences with its necessary messaging long before things like Dear White People and Higher Learning came around. Set on homecoming weekend at the fictional Mission College in Atlanta, School Daze touches on a bit of everything-colorism within the Black community, natural hair, how Black women are treated, the Black middle class, burdensome student workloads, apartheid, fraternity culture, and, of course, the importance of historically Black colleges and universities-which at times makes the film feel slightly fractured, but no less compelling. But the fourth-wall break is aimed at everyone, the characters and watchers of Lee's second feature film, in which he stars as Dap's cousin Half-Pint, to get a freaking clue about myriad racial and political points he's made through the narrative. In arguably the most iconic moment in the HBCU-set musical comedy School Daze, Laurence Fishburne's campus activist Vaughn "Dap" Dunlap runs across the quad to yell into the camera "Wake up!" It plays out literally in the movie's final scene, as Dap rushes into dorms to get his classmates out of bed.
It's as entertaining a crime story as it is a disconcerting indictment of hate. Although the film can play like a procedural, Lee elevates its complexities by weaving in powerful monologues from anti-racist activists, nods to racist moments in film history, and montages of present-day footage.
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As Stallworth, John David Washington is given a star vehicle, and the deft Adam Driver accomplishes an ambitious twofold performance as Detective Philip Zimmerman, Stallworth's Jewish partner who goes undercover. Like many of his films, the drama, based on Ron Stallworth's 2014 memoir, is complicated and timely, telling Stallworth's story of how he as a Black detective infiltrated the Colorado Springs chapter of the KKK in the '70s while experiencing racism on the police force.
After more than three decades of notable films, Lee finally got a sweep of Oscar nominations for BlacKkKlansman, including his first-ever Best Director nod and a win for Best Adapted Screenplay.
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