Top 140 Quotes & Sayings by Spike Lee
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American director Spike Lee.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
I tend to favour films that have multiple plot and story lines, multiple characters and ensemble pieces.
My grandmother lived to be 100 years old. Her grandmother was a slave, yet she was a college graduate in the Spellman class of 1917. She taught art for 50 years and she saved her Social Security checks for her children's education.
Any time you talk about the look of the film, it's not just the director and the director of photography. You have to include the costume designer and the production designer.
'She's Gotta Have It' and 'School Daze,' I really didn't know what I was doing. And the biggest indicator of that was the acting. 'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.
I live in New York City, the stories of my films take place in New York; I'm a New York filmmaker.
I think people who have faults are a lot more interesting than people who are perfect.
I'm blessed, I can afford to send my children to private school.
People of color have a constant frustration of not being represented, or being misrepresented, and these images go around the world.
I had a great education. From kindergarten to John Dewey High School in Coney Island, I am public-school educated.
Everything I do is always scrutinised. But that's all I'll say about that.
For me, I believe in God, God is real.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it's been a quest since then to define who we are.
I think that every minority in the United States of America knows everything about the dominant culture. From the time you can think, you are bombarded with images from TV, film, magazines, newspapers.
I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive.
There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.
I'm just trying to tell a good story and make thought-provoking, entertaining films. I just try and draw upon the great culture we have as a people, from music, novels, the streets.
I think it would be very boring dramatically to have a film where everybody was a lawyer or doctor and had no faults. To me, the most important thing is to be truthful.
I don't get tripped up in technology. I use technology as a tool. 'Oldboy' we shot Two Pro 35mm. For 'Da Blood of Jesus,' we shot digitally. We shot the new Sony F55. It's a 4K camera.
Right now a lot of people are still choosing to go to Toronto instead of shooting in New York City, something I haven't done and something I hope I'll never have to do.
Violence is a part of America. I don't want to single out rap music. Let's be honest. America's the most violent country in the history of the world, that's just the way it is. We're all affected by it.
I'm riding my man Obama. I think he's a visionary. Actually, Barack told me the first date he took Michelle to was 'Do the Right Thing.' I said, Thank God I made it. Otherwise you would have taken her to 'Soul Man.' Michelle would have been like 'What's wrong with this brother?'
When I went to school, you had to take art, you had to play an instrument. You had to play an instrument. But it's all degraded since then. I do not know what kind of nation we are that is cutting art, music, and gym out of the public-school curriculum.
'Red Hook Summer' is another chapter in my chronicles of Brooklyn.
Amongst black people, you have always heard it said that once a black man reaches a certain level, especially if you are an entertainer, you get a white trophy woman. I didn't make that up.
If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.
I'm very careful about how I portray violence in my films. I do believe that violence, especially violent video games, are not a good thing for young kids.
'She's Gotta Have It' was shot in twelve days and two six-day weeks.
It has been my observation that parents kill more dreams than anybody.
Fight the power that be. Fight the power.
'Do the Right Thing' was like the first film where I really felt comfortable working with actors.
And one thing Hollywood does well is sequels.
People think I'm this angry black man walking around in a constant state of rage.
My cousin Malcolm Lee is also a filmmaker.
I don't think I'm a total pessimist, so I think you can find hope in all my films.
All directors are storytellers, so the motivation was to tell the story I wanted to tell. That's what I love.
I like to work with the same people when I can, and you want to get people with the same interests that you have, and the same aesthetic.
Mike Tyson is the most complex person I've ever met in my life. I've known Mike since 1986. We're both from Brooklyn. I didn't know him growing up, but once he became heavyweight champion, I knew him then.
I am very fortunate I can send my kids to private school, but everybody does not have the money. If you cannot get your kid in a good school today, your kids are going to be behind the eight ball.
Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.
Making films has got to be one of the hardest endeavors known to humankind.
A lot of times you get credit for stuff in your movies you didn't intend to be there.
I am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films - I love them both.
I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.
I've been blessed with the opportunity to express the views of black people who otherwise don't have access to power and the media. I have to take advantage of that while I'm still bankable.
You have to do the research. If you don't know about something, then you ask the right people who do.
What's the difference between Hollywood characters and my characters? Mine are real.
I respect the audience's intelligence a lot, and that's why I don't try to go for the lowest common denominator.
First of all, what in this world does not revolve around money? But money is a big part of film, unlike a lot of other art forms.
I get offered to do stuff where the money's nice but it's not something I want to do - I get offered a lot of commercials too.
Don't think that because you haven't heard from me for a while that I went to sleep. I am still here, like a spirit roaming the night. Thirsty, hungry, seldom stopping to rest.
Since the days of slavery, if you were a good singer or dancer, it was your job to perform for the master after dinner.
'Do the Right Thing' was my first union film. I looked at the rosters, and for the most part, it was white males. Especially the Teamsters. So we had some conversations.
A spine to my films that's become more evident to me is that many are about the choices people make, and the reverberations of those choices. You go this way, or that way, and either way, there's going to be consequences.
I didn't dream about being a director. I didn't know I wanted to do something with film until the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.
We grew up in a very creative environment and were exposed to the arts at a very young age, so it's not a surprise that all of us are in some form of the arts.
I think it is very important that films make people look at what they've forgotten.
A lot of times, we censor ourselves before the censor even gets there.
There's an unwritten law that you cannot have a Jewish character in a film who isn't 100 percent perfect, or you're labeled anti-Semitic.
I'd like to state that Spike Lee is not saying that African American culture is just for black people alone to enjoy and cherish. Culture is for everybody.
I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.
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