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Spike Lee’s documentary films

Alonso Díaz de la Vega @diazdelavega1

It isn’t hard to say that Spike Lee is the most important African-American director since Oscar Micheaux. A singular pioneer for introducing racial themes into an industry dominated by white, Anglo-Saxon protestants, Micheaux was also remarkable for doing so with a unique ingenuity. Lee, on the other hand, has distinguished himself as an influential filmmaker during the second half of the 20th century with a vibrant style which includes low angles, steeper than usual, sudden changes in the film format and unforgettable dolly-shots which turn the characters into disoriented ghosts in a world full of inequality and resentment.

Perhaps Lee’s two most important documentaries are the most political ones. The first one, 4 Little Girls (1997), earned him an Oscar nomination for telling the lives of four girls and their deaths in an Alabama church in 1963. The singularity of this story is that these girls participated in the struggle for the African-American community’s civil rights and were finally murdered in a bombing. Lee’s method is once again journalistic but flashes of style give the film a unique personality as they reach a moment of devastating pathos when we see former Alabama governor George Wallace insisting that he’s no racist because his butler has black skin.

When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006) is probably Spike Lee’s masterpiece. Divided in four episodes, this miniseries is an oral history of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath which exposes the institutional racism, the failure of an army that knows only how to combat and not how to rescue, and the plain disillusion of being poor and African-American. In many ways it’s the testament of a man who has devoted his filmography to scream on behalf of his race, demanding equality and, most of all, justice.