Maysles Cinema Wednesdays at Nowadays Presents:

Making “Do the Right Thing” (on 16mm)

(THIS PROGRAM ORIGINALLY SCHEDULED FOR WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2ND IS NOW SCHEDULED FOR THURSDAY, AUGUST 17TH DUE TO RAIN.)

St. Clair Bourne, 1989, 60 min
For ten weeks during the summer of 1988, Spike Lee took his cast and crew to Brooklyn's "Do or Die" Bed Stuy to shoot Do the Right Thing. Using interviews and behind-the-scenes footage of Lee at work with his stars Danny Aeillo, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Giancarlo Esposito, Making "Do the Right Thing" records the creation of this important American film. But beyond this, Bourne's film captures the fascinating transformation of a proto-gentrifying Bed-Stuy into a Hollywood movie set, and the impact of this disruption on the area's residents. The difficulties of on location shooting - security, control on the set, community cooperation - were made extreme by this story's setting. Tensions arose which just don't exist on the back lots at Universal. By recognizing these particular problems, Making "Do the Right Thing" becomes a social documentary as well as a chronicle of Spike Lee's powerful feature.