What’s Aged the Best?
The film's timelessness; Fight the Power
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 00:48:05Read transcript
- Fight the Power appears in the film over 20 times and was written for it after Lee asked Chuck D for an anthem.
- Other rundown items: the clash between generations and races, Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee as the mayor and Mother Sister, and Spike Lee as a movie star.
- Lee is not a good actor here but does not need to be; he gives a charismatic center, is not dead on screen, and this was essentially the last time he put himself at the center of one of his films.
- Also listed: Danny Aiello's nominated powerhouse performance, Robin Harris as Sweet Dick Willie, Dickerson's color in the red wall and the rooms, Mr. Softee, and direct address to camera later borrowed by Wes Anderson.
- Two things one host believes Tarantino took from the film: the 'shoot me in a dream' line that reappears in Reservoir Dogs, and the Sicilians-and-Moors idea from True Romance echoing Mookie and Pino's talk; Lee has never said this.
- Asked what has aged best, the answer is the film's timelessness, perhaps the movie itself.
- Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who per one host never got fuller film careers for racism-related reasons, get a salty love letter here; asked whether they are the vote, the answer is the film instead.
- Public Enemy is the other pick: the song never gets tiring, has perfect samples, and Chuck D's muscular, off-kilter voice cannot be mimicked, according to a participant who wrote rap criticism for almost 10 years.
- The harmony with Flavor Flav is praised, while noting the history his image invokes and that he later complicated it as a reality star; the result is called 'your winner. Fight the Power.'