Spike Lee Reflects on Police Brutality Since 'Do the Right Thing' on 'Tonight Show'

Jazz Tangcay Artisans EditorThe relationship between director Spike Lee and composer Terence Blanchard is rooted in collaboration, counting over 15 films together — most recently, “Da 5 Bloods.”“Terence is a great jazz musician and band player,” says Lee. “He brings that wealth of understanding of what music does with colors, shapes and feeling.”Blanchard, who moonlights as a trumpeter, credits the strength of their 30-year relationship to Lee’s self-assurance as an artist.

Ellise Shafer editorSpike Lee’s “Do the Right Thing” will be free to stream online until June 29.The 1989 film is also the American Film Institute‘s pick this week for its Movie Club. It will be accompanied by a live conversation with Lee on AFI’s YouTube channel on Thursday at 8 p.m.

Todd McCarthy The most striking, urgent, up-to-the-minute film I’ve seen this week was directed by Spike Lee. It speaks to the moment, pulses with turbulent emotional and political currents, overflows with vibrant characters and bluntly confronts society’s painful unfinished business.

In announcing its latest Movie Club selection, the American Film Institute packed in a bit more news. The organization is partnering with Universal Pictures to offer free rentals of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing and will feature the filmmaker in conversation on Thursday.

For a long time, Spike Lee has had his finger on the pulse of America. In 1992, he screened Malcolm X for studio execs on the same day that four white cops who brutally beat unarmed Black construction worker Rodney King were acquitted of assault.

You would think that Spike Lee wouldn’t have much trouble finding a studio to finance and distribute his films. After decades of films that have been nominated for all sorts of awards and coming off his first Oscar win, it would stand to reason that a filmmaker would have a line of studios hoping to work with him.

Spike Lee is explaining his interpretation of a popular call to “Defund the Police” amid protests globally against systemic racism and police brutality.

Denise Petski Senior Managing EditorSpike Lee talked with Jimmy Fallon about police brutality and how things have changed (or have not) since his 1989 film Do The Right Thing in an appearance on The Tonight Show Monday.In response to the death of George Floyd, Lee had released a short film, Will History Stop Repeating Itself?, that intersperses footage of Eric Garner, George Floyd and Radio Raheem, his character from Do The Right Thing, in police chokeholds.

Similar to other celebrities in the entertainment industry, Spike Lee, the 63-year-old director, is feeling heavy about the death of George Floyd while in police custody in addition to the subsequent protests regarding police brutality. During a recent conversation with Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, in the middle of promoting his new film, Da 5 Bloods, Spike Lee shared his thoughts on the Black Lives Matter protests.

Spike Lee has compared the latest Black Lives Matter protests to the civil rights movements that took place in the 1960s.Following the death of African-American man George Floyd at the hands of a white cop in Minneapolis, Minnesota on 25 May, calls for an end to racial injustice have intensified worldwide. Accordingly, director Spike has responded by creating a new short film.

Shortly after the video was released of George Floyd being killed by a police officer and protests began to rise up around the US, Spike Lee released a short clip editing together the videos of Floyd and Eric Garner being killed alongside a similar scene in the director’s own “Do The Right Thing,” asking the question, “When will history stop repeating itself?” In a new interview with the Los Angeles Times, Lee talked about the connection between his 1989 acclaimed film and the recent racist

"He's trying to be a dictator"

«Will history stop repeating itself?» Spike Lee asks as much at the start of a minute-and-a-half-long short film he shared on Twitter, which splices clips from his 1989 film,, with footage of the police killings of Eric Garner in 2014 and George Floyd in May.

NEW YORK -- It's not the first time that Spike Lee's “Do the Right Thing” has been freshly urgent, but Lee's 1989 film has again found blistering relevance in the wake of George Floyd's death.

"Will history stop repeating itself?"