Do the Right Thing

Wednesday 28 July at 7.30pm

Spike Lee│USA│1989│120 mins│M offensive language

A Brooklyn neighbourhood’s simmering racial tension reaches boiling point on the hottest day of the year. Over 30 years old, but entirely contemporary.

“Spike Lee’s tale of the complexities of race exacerbated by the police, those enforcers of state-sanctioned white supremacy, may now be considered a classic, almost thirty years after its initial release, but that status has not dulled the film’s cathartic anger nor its controversial edge. The film follows the goings-on on a single block in Brooklyn over the course of a single, sweltering summer day, from a morning of simmering tensions, focusing on a white-owned pizzeria, to a night of violence. Do the Right Thing teems with life, thanks to an extraordinary ensemble cast and a soundtrack that brings together hip hop, jazz and R&B.” – Harvard Film Archive