MY MOVIE SHELF: Do the Right Thing

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 71 Days to go: 48

Movie #369:  Do the Right Thing

Rest in peace, Radio Raheem.

Almost 26 years since Do the Right Thing was released in theaters and at times it almost seems like nothing much has changed. You watch the news and see racial tensions and stereotypes that still plague us, that simmer right below the surface all the time, just waiting for a spark to set them off, just like they do in Spike Lee’s masterpiece, his signature film. I wonder now — just as I did back then — if there’s ever going to be an answer to all the hatred and rage, and I honestly don’t know. What I do know, however, is that Do the Right Thing is still as significant as bold and as powerful as it ever was.

The movie is an intimate, knowing portrait of the New York City neighborhood of Bed-Stuy, and in a way it’s easy to see how much Lee loves it and celebrates its culture. But the film itself is about the anger and intolerance in all of us, as it documents the clashing personalities and rising tensions on this sizzling hot summer day across a couple of city blocks. Lee himself plays Mookie, the main character, who is kind of a layabout good-for-nothing according to most of the neighborhood folks — especially his sister Jade (played by Lee’s own sister Joie) and girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez). He delivers pizza for Sal (Danny Aiello), giving him a lot of time to socialize and mingle with people on the street. These include old timers Da Mayor (Ossie Davis) and Mother Sister (Ruby Dee), middle-aged complainers Coconut Sid (Frankie Faison) and Sweet Dick Willie (Robin Harris), and young trouble makers like the activist Buggin’ Out (Giancarlo Esposito) and the aforementioned Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), who will meet an untimely end. The neighborhood is primarily black, but when Sal opened his pizzeria it used to be Italian, and as the complainers have noted, Koreans and Puerto Ricans are moving in on their territory. Everyone is part of the problem, including the cops, and nobody is able to stop these clashing prejudices from eventually erupting into a deadly and destructive riot.

The movie is a profoundly important one, I think. One that everyone should see. But one of my most distinct memories of it — more distinct, even, than seeing it in the theater that first time — was when ABC aired it on TV. I just remember what an insanely bad idea this was, and how poorly thought out, because while Do the Right Thing makes an incredibly powerful and essential cultural statement, it’s full of profanity and racial slurs and all sorts of things ABC was never going to get to show on television. It was so stupid to me — not that ABC wanted to show the film, but that it would have to be so drastically censored. One of the points of the film are the crass and vulgar ways people speak about one another when tempers rise, and if you mute those for broadcast — or worse, record over them with softball alternatives — it dilutes the message to meaninglessness. I understand that some words are not appropriate for young children, and that some people are offended by profanity, but the explicitness is as essential to Do the Right Thing as Do the Right Thing is to the social consciousness. Sadly, however, we still live in a world in which a movie can chop someone’s head off and be rated PG-13, but if someone says “fuck” in a family drama more than once, it’s an automatic R.

I guess what I’m saying is, context is everything. And a movie is more than just a bunch of bad words, just like a riot is more than just a riot.

MY MOVIE SHELF: Moonstruck

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 193  Days to go: 199

Movie #184:  Moonstruck

So, I could say a lot about Moonstruck and how it is a pretty solid representation of the kind of people I grew up around — my stepfather is half Greek, half Italian, so if you combined Moonstruck and My Big Fat Greek Wedding, you’d get a fair estimation of what his entire extended family is like. I was not at all like these people. I was a fair-skinned, blonde, introspective and relatively quiet child. Non-confrontational. Used to being alone. These people were never alone, and neither is anyone in Moonstruck.

I could also talk about the central romance between Loretta (Cher) and Ronny (Nicolas Cage), the engagement of Loretta and Johnny (Danny Aiello), the marriage of Rose (Olympia Dukakis) and Cosmo (Vincent Gardenia), and the expectations, similarities and differences of these three relationships. I could talk about the brothers, or Loretta’s relationship with her parents, or even Loretta’s parents’ relationship with her grandfather (Feodor Chaliapin Jr.) and how family is represented as both combative and enveloping, how the yelling and the sarcasm take nothing away from the ultimate supportiveness and importance of the family.

I could talk about how for years I planned (and, actually, still plan, maybe) to attend the funerals of my adversaries in a red dress.

I could talk about how the idea of luck Loretta puts forward deeply influences my own superstitions.

I could talk about all the representations of food in this movie (including the opening and closing credits song “That’s Amore”) and how they’ve stuck with me and influenced me over the years. (“Don’t get the greasy fish.” “You’ll eat this one bloody, it’ll feed you blood.” “Old man, you give those dogs another plate of my food, I’m gonna kick you ’til you’re dead.”)

And I could talk about Rose’s quest to discover why men chase women, even though she simply wants to be told what she already believes — that men fear death. Her dinner with Perry (John Mahoney), though, is a fascinating side trip in that endeavor. It’s electrically charged, and Perry responds to it. Rose does too, but she knows who she is. She’s comfortable with who she is. It’s not that she’s not drawn to him, because she is. She finds him amusing and intriguing. But she doesn’t have to act on her attraction, like others in the film, because she’s not in the same emotional place as the others.

What I need to talk about, however, is my first marriage.

I was really unhappy that last year of my first marriage, although I didn’t know it. Not exactly. I just felt off. I felt miserable. I wanted solitude. I wanted to be left alone to lie motionless on the couch watching TV. I didn’t even realize that was such textbook depression until much later, though I did at some point beg my husband to let me see a therapist. (He was very much against the idea, but eventually relented after who knows how many hours of me in tears on my knees, pleading with him.) By that point, though, I was aggressively withdrawing into a fantasy world, wanting less and less to do with my real one. I kept pushing further and further away and eventually I pushed him too far. This is not to say that he wasn’t a part of the problem as well; we both became incredibly petty and demanding in various ways, and we never really connected again on what we wanted or how we wanted to go about it. There was a time when I saw a very clear fork in the road, a way to salvage our marriage and a way to completely forsake it, but there was too much against us at that point and we couldn’t get on the same page. That wasn’t the end of things — there ended up being another eight months of heartbreak and anger and betrayal before I moved out, and another year after that before our divorce was finalized — but it was the beginning of the end, for sure. And all I could think about was Moonstruck and how terrified I was that I was the wolf Loretta accuses Ronny of being.

Ronny lost his hand to a bread slicer five years before and blames his brother for it because it cost him his fiancée and, in his mind, his life. “I lost my hand! I lost my bride! Johnny has his hand! Johnny has his bride!” Loretta tells him he’s a wolf, caught in the trap of the wrong love. To escape that trap, he “chewed” off his own hand. “And now you’re afraid, because you found out the big part of you is a wolf that has the courage to bite off its own hand to save itself from the trap of the wrong love.” I was terrified that this is what I did. That I’d deliberately sabotaged my marriage to get out of a relationship that was suffocating me. It didn’t occur to me at the time how much of myself had been lost through those years with him, or how I know longer knew who I was, but as it became clear how unhappy I’d been, I’d become more and more convinced I was that same wolf, maiming myself in order to be free. And if I could do it once, what’s to say I wouldn’t find myself in that situation again? What’s to say I wouldn’t cut out my own heart again? And have to start all over again? It was quite honestly the most frightened I have ever been.

However, as I gained more space and distance from that relationship, I gradually found myself again, and in finding myself, I found a relationship that complemented who I really was. I feel more confident now, because not only am I infinitely happier, I also know what’s at stake. I know the work and the commitment required to make a marriage work, and I know that it’s worth it. I’ve found my family, and family, as Moonstruck demonstrates, is everything.

Alla famiglia!