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Monday, Nov 9, 2009
A melting pot of several stories, "Summer of Sam" is a sprawling urban epic from Brooklyn's native son.
Jun 30, 1999 | Spike Lee is the most ambitious filmmaker in America. And by ambitious, I do not mean the most impeccable -- that is Martin Scorsese, who has exquisite taste, a flawless sense of rhythm and a perfect ear for dialogue. By ambitious I also do not mean bankable -- that's still Steven Spielberg; or eccentric -- my money's still on David Lynch; or even the riskiest with his resources -- I haven't given up on that gambler Francis Ford Coppola, and neither should you. No, Spike Lee is the most ambitious because every time he makes one movie, he actually makes 18: 18 stories, 18 complicated, often contradictory themes, 18 music videos, comedies, tragedies, farces and docudramas. Eighteen story lines, locations, dialects and moods. That is why watching his films, while worth it, can be so taxing. If you watched 18 movies in one sitting, you'd be worn out, too.
Lee's latest, "Summer of Sam," which opens Friday, is an urban epic, a noisy, swirling, flawed, hilarious, witty, tender, violent, questionable train wreck. Maybe Lee took on too much in taking the summer of 1977 as his subject, but taking on too much is his M.O. The film, organized around the killings and capture of serial killer David Berkowitz, aka Son of Sam, hits on the heat wave, blackouts, Studio 54, punk rock and Reggie Jackson. It's set in the Bronx, and its ensemble cast includes John Leguizamo as a philandering husband, Mira Sorvino as his wife, Ben Gazzara as the neighborhood don, a vocal cameo by Lee regular John Turturro as the voice of the dog ordering Son of Sam to kill, and columnist Jimmy Breslin, who appealingly bookends the action with commentary.
Sorvino especially shines here, acting as the movie's human center -- a good dancer, good daughter, good wife, she keeps all the headline violence in check. The most gut-wrenching moment is not one of the many pointless, brutal shootings or the many pointless brawls. The most gut-wrenching moment is watching the happiness drain from Sorvino's face as she kisses her husband and tastes another woman on his lips.
Lee's ambitious approach is intensely democratic. His mosaic storytelling impulse, aided by his talent and ability at choosing singular actors, feels like what America is supposed to feel like. The citizens of his cities are not faceless, nameless representatives of the masses. They are unique individuals with personalities and quirks. That is why Lee's oeuvre sticks with the viewer in specific scenes rather than story arcs, moments such as Danny Aiello's bittersweet courting of the radiant Joie Lee in "Do the Right Thing," or Samuel L. Jackson and Halle Berry's memorable performances as crackheads in "Jungle Fever." This individualist collectivism is mirrored in his process, epitomized by the loving production credit on his movies, "A Spike Lee Joint," which means everything from operating independently to hiring your dad to write the musical score.
Considering that heat, New York City and Italian food are characters as much as the actors are, "Summer of Sam" plays like a companion piece to Lee's 1989 breakthrough, "Do the Right Thing." Of all Lee's characters over the years, the filmmaker himself seems most identifiable with one from that film -- Mother Sister as played by Ruby Dee. The elderly neighborhood matriarch sits in her window all day, witnessing. A matronly Santa Claus, she knows who's been bad and who's been good; omniscient, she's the director's double, the only figure in the neighborhood who can keep track of all the stories around her -- everyone else is too absorbed in his own little plot.
