Spike Lee to Appear as Special Guest at Virginia Film Festival in Charlottesville
Source: IMDb
Source: IMDb
Legendary black filmmaker Spike Lee recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter about a number of topics including Black Klansman, his collaborative project with Jordan Peele; his thoughts on Donald Trump and the white nationalist groups that support him; and the Netflix reboot of his classic movie She's Gotta Have It.
READ: Jordan Peele, Spike Lee Teaming Up For 'Black Klansman' KKK Movie
"We're introducing more characters, [fleshing out the story]," Lee says when asked about the difference between Netflix series and movie version of She's Gotta Have It. "In the film, Nola is an artist, but you rarely saw her work. Now you see this young sister struggling to make her art in Fort Greene. She's got three, four jobs and is juggling three men. The major change is there wasn't this animal called gentrification back in 1985, when we shot the movie. Gentrification is a big theme in the series."
From there, Lee speaks on Black Klansman and how the announcement of the forthcoming film came around the time the "Unite the Right" rally took place in Charlottesville.
"Charlottesville was not a revelation to me. I was not asleep to think that, 'Oh my God, there are neo-Nazis in America. Oh my God, there's the Klan. Oh my God, there's an alt-right,'" Lee says. "The president has given these people the green light, the wink-wink."
"Racism is in the DNA of the United States of America. This country was built on the genocide of Native Americans and slavery. That's how this motherfucker was built," he continues. "The first president owned slaves. The Founding Fathers owned slaves. The Founding Fathers were rapists...So I don't want to hear this, 'Oh, our Founding Fathers —' Bullshit! They owned slaves. If you own somebody else, you're evil. I'm sorry. Evil."
The filmmaker also takes time to speak on the importance of Peele's feature film directorial debut Get Out, calling it a "masterwork" and if it will receive an Oscar nomination or not.
"Whether it wins an [Oscar] or not has nothing to do with the impact that film made or how great it is," Lee says. "So I hope it gets nominated, but I've come to understand you can't let people, organizations, whatever, validate your work."
Read the rest of the interview here.
