‘Da 5 Bloods’ is the latest entry in the cinematic catalog of Spike Lee Joints. I’ve counted twenty-three feature films, eight feature length documentaries, seven plays/theatrical experiences and a huge number of shorts, music videos and commercials. Despite this immense body of work Spike is probably more defined in the public imagination by his gregarious, political, incendiary and funny public statements as his cinematic style. You read reviews of Spike’s feature films and, even in the most celebrated, you find words like “messy,” “uneven,” “overstuffed,” and other attacks on the tonal shifts that mark much of his work. I’ve had conversations with filmmakers and screenwriters who complained about Spike’s unwillingness/inability to adhere to the classic three act structure that’s Hollywood’s storytelling Holy Grail.
However starting with the montage of “dogs” kicking game to Nola Darling in ‘She’s Gotta Have It,” to the floating camera shot that was his mid-career trademark, to his current habit of integrating documentary footage and album covers from music heard on the soundtrack, Spike has never colored within the lines of any narrative frame. Spike ransacks film genres, but not out of any loyalty to them, but as tools to create unexpected juxtapositions. ‘Malcolm X’ opens like an MGM musical. ‘She Hate Me’ is a parable of the Watergate break in as much as a sex farce. ‘The 25th Hour’ is more powerful as meditation of post-9/11 New York than the story of one man’s last night of freedom. Virtually every Spike Lee Joint is a bait & switch between what the synopsis suggest and how the telling is executed. Style is substance, imagery are ideas, and story is a vehicle, not the destination, in his world.
Spike’s films are packed with various signatures. There are stylized character names (Nola Darling in ‘She’s,’ Gator and Flipper in ‘Jungle Fever,’ all the lead characters in ‘Da 5 Bloods’ are named after the original Temptations etc.) He slides old school slang into new world stories (Senor Love Daddy’s “And that’s the truth Ruth” in ‘Do the Right Thing’ harks back to ‘50s R&B radio jocks.) Whether the director of photography is Ernest Dickerson, Arthur Jafa or Matthew Libatique, Spike makes exquisite use of interior establishing shots, using the heavily detailed bedrooms, offices and restaurants his character’s inhabit to their define their world and comment on the unfolding scene. Perhaps because he is the son of a musician (bassist Bill Lee), Spike has always orchestrated elaborately staged marriages of music and movement, often keyed to black classics (Stevie Wonder’s “Living for the City” in ‘Jungle Fever,’ Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come” in ‘Malcolm X,’ Boogie Down Productions’ “Outta Here” in ‘Clockers.’) And if there’s a film stock or digital camera in creation Spike has not used I’d be surprised.
Whether the apt comparison is to a jazz soloist or a hip-hop DJ, I’m not sure. You could make an argument that Spike’s films are informed by both these aesthetics. Where the jazz player riffs on American standards and the DJ’s makes a sonic collage of vinyl, I would suggest plot, at least as viewed by traditional storytelling, is the music Spike riffs off. The fluid form of his work is a manifestation of a mind keenly tuned into of-the-moment events, America’s horrid racial history, and all the film history this tenured professor at NYU film has collected. Ambition flies out of each frame. It can be overwhelming. It can feel overlong. Sometimes the balance of plot to style can feel off. But Spike never cheats his viewers. There’s not a lazy moment in his work. He’s reaching for a synthesis of righteous anger and black folk magic. Either you go on that journey with him or you don’t. So when you watch ‘Da 5 Bloods’ on Netflix or dip back into the ever growing catalog of Spike Lee Joints, know that the story will have meaning, but so will the asides, jokes, digressions, history lessons, music cues, graphics and camera moves. Like a boxer, his work sticks and moves.