Spike Lee to blame US government in new Katrina film

[Algorem]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/hurricanes2005/story/0,16546,1594815,00.html

Paul Arendt
Tuesday October 18, 2005
The Guardian

Film-maker Spike Lee is planning to shoot a documentary about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Lee's film, tentatively titled When the Levee Broke, is expected to tackle the US administration's heavily criticised handling of the disaster. US cable channel HBO is producing the documentary, which Lee wants to complete in time for the first anniversary of the floods.

No stranger to controversy, Lee has already stated his suspicion that the authorities were somehow involved in the flooding. Asked about conspiracy theories during an appearance on CNN, he said: "I don't put anything past the United States government. I don't find it too far-fetched that they tried to displace all the black people out of New Orleans."

Lee first came to widespread public attention in 1988 with his film Do the Right Thing, which dissected the motives behind a race riot in New York to explosive effect. Since then, Lee's films, or "joints", have tended to place racial issues front and centre.

Bamboozled saw an African-American TV exec finding an unexpected hit with a minstrel show; Jungle Fever dealt with interracial dating; and the documentary 4 Little Girls recounted the events behind the racially motivated bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Lee's 1992 biopic of civil rights campaigner Malcolm X won several awards and garnered an Oscar nomination for its star, Denzel Washington.

[Seansky]

1. wouldn't it be more like to "show" governments' blame?

[phantom power]

2. What's the story with that word "joint"?

[Algorem]

3. I think it means joint production

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

4. (very vague memory here)

I think he coined it when he first starting making films as a cool way to refer to his work. Then he began putting "A Spike Lee Joint" as a title card at the start of his movies. I don't think it has any deeper significance.

[RaleighNCDUer]

5. I always saw it as referencing 'joint' as a slang for a bar, or club,

or other place of business. You know, like a 'juke joint'. Guy walks into a garage and asks the worker "this your joint?".

The movies is where he works, so his own movie would be a 'Spike Lee joint".

Just guessing.

[RethugAssKicker]

6. Good for SPIKE!!!

Hope he rips 'em apart!