Do the right thing , Fight the power

Hong(2912)'s film analysis Do The Right Thing

The movie I want to talk about is Do The Right Thing, which is directed by Spike Lee. I loved this movie most among all the movies we have seen before. The little stories it contained are very powerful and set me thinking. Everyone is an epitome of this society. They have different personality, some of them are cowardice, they affair to fight, some of them are brave, they understand what they want and fight for them, even it will hurt themselves. I am going to talk about the way Spike Lee used to introduce audiences into this movie —— a woman dancing, the main place where most fight happen, and I want to talk about the characters as well. When I saw Martin's photo in this film I realize it would be the story about black people who want to “fight the power”. But until the end, I didn’t find anyone who really fight the power.

So what exactly the “right thing” is?

This movie is about the daily life of some black guys live in New York. Many trifling things make up this simple, but serials movie. Love daddy keeping saying something which is hard to understand, some guys stand on the street to quarrel about trifles, a idiocy always hold some photos to sell…some guys talk in the street and make some trouble for police…It’s seems like it is a common film at the beginning, But everything happens in the last minutes shocks everybody. Everything is mess. People fight, shout. What irony is the Korean man hit the police when they try to carry Radio Raheem away, but when some black people want to go into his shop, he hold the sweeper and shout that he is black.

At the beginning, the director shot a woman dancing for a really long time, if you listen to the background music carefully you can hear the lyrics contains these words “got to give us what we want, going to give us what we need, our freedom of speech is freedom or death, we got to fight the powers that be, let me hear you say. Fight the power”. The woman dancing very powerful, and she even begin to boxing. As we all know, boxing is a really powerful sport, and see somebody boxing can make people feel exciting too. That is the reason why Spike Lee chose this action.

There are many different shot about this, and the director used close shot to show the woman’s face, she seems like very enjoy and powerful . Then love daddy appear, and keeping saying“wake up wake up”. It seems like he is balderdash, but in fact, this is a way the director tell everyone to wake up to realize the real world by using love daddy’s mouse.

This movie doesn’t have any fantastic sequences, only a street, a shop, this two are almost all the stories happen. But just these things, give us a real cool movie. The wall which in Sal’s shop named “WALL OF FAME” is the reason of most fight. Buggin and Radio Raheem both argue with Sal due to this wall doesn’t have anyone who is black man. In this movie, everyone is in the same level, black people is not higher than white people, or white people is more respectable than black people. Black always said we should elimination of racial discrimination，but they are also the man who confront it. In this movie, black people are too sensitive, they have the thought that they are lower than white people, that is the reason why they want to see black people’s picture in the pizza shop? No black people’s picture on the wall, so what? It doesn’t mean anything. But they think that means they are not respected. Sal is kind to Mookie’s sister, he thought Sal has some bad ideas.

What is the most important stuff in this movie is the character.

Sal, who is a kind guy, until the end of this film I still think he is very nice, even thought he is strict to Mookie. Sal is kind to smiley when Pino shout at him. Mookie ruin his shop's window, then other people rush in and burn it, everyone will be crazy if their shops were ruined by their worker, but he still pays Mookie money. He thinks the radio is too noisy and ask Raheem to turn the radio off, I don’t think there is anything wrong with it. But Radio Raheem refuses to turn off, so they fight, what happen next is, police appear, and killed Radio Raheem as an accident. People feel angry, so they choose to break Sal’s shop to express their rage. Poor Sal! Buggin argues with him many times due to the photos on the wall don't have anyone who is black, by the way, I think Buggin is really a ridiculous man, what he like to do is hang around and argue with others, like trouble maker. Sal thought that is his wall, he has the right to decide whatever he want to hang, maybe he just doesn't like to compromise to others. They argue about this again and again. If buggin really wants to prove something, this is not what he should do. There are other things which are more worth him to do.
The other hero Mookie, he may be the reason the director set to stand opposite against Sal. Mookie has a family, and the first scene of him, he is counting his money in a very dark room, and he is very happy. We can tell that he loves money so much that through all the movie we can keep hearing he say to Sal “Can you pay me money now?” At the beginning he always the man who stops the fight in Sal’s pizza shop, he doesn’t have any dream, he just help deliver pizza, try to make his wife happen, and earn money to support his family, that’s it. Even at last he breaks the windows, which is also all he did. He stands there, and just watches. Doesn’t rush in to fight, doesn’t stop it too. What exactly he is thinking about? Nobody knows.

I have to say that I really love Radio Raheem, especially the scene when he show love and hate use his special ring . He always carry the radio, and always win when other one let he turn off. But also because of this, he died at last. In my opinion he is the real hero in this movie, the radio always play the music “fight the power”, and one scene is one guy is listening to some music, Radio Raheem pass him and the guy require he to turn off the radio, he doesn’t say any word. Then the guy turn up the voice, and Radio Raheem turn up the radio voice too, then the guy said “you win”. How cool the Radio Raheem is!

Da mayor is also a nice guy. He often be made fun by some young guys, but he doesn’t care about that, he just be himself. He is also the one who said “do the right thing”. He save a child, but the child doesn’t thank him, and his mother even blames him at first, we can tell that do right thing can not always have the good ending. But in the other way, he makes mother sister respect him.
After watched this film, I don’t know whether I should have sympathy for them or not, for Sal, he live in an area where most people around he is black, why can’t he just hang one photo of black people? He did nothing wrong, why his shop be the victim of this confrontation? For Mookie, how impulse he is. What he get from this? Losing job, and breaking with Sal…
What exactly the RIGHT THING is? I can just say it depends. Do the black guys ruin Sal's shop is the right thing? Does Mookie break his boss's shop first and let himself lose the job is the right thing? Does the Radio Raheem insist hand black people’s photo is the right thing? Black people can fight for their right not by violence, just like smiley draw a crown on Martin. Martin is the man who is against violence. Smiley gives him a crown, but some other black guys are doing the opposite thing.