BEFORE: Sad news today, I learned that my aunt passed away. My mother's sister, her only sibling - I've got a number of aunts and uncles on my father's side, but on my mother's side, just the one. The news wasn't unexpected, she'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, but it still came as a shock.
It's only natural to watch films (or read a book, or see a painting) and try to relate one's own experience to it. So having seen a number of films this week with characters ailing in hospitals ("Inception", "Edge of Darkness", "Family Business"), in a way my thoughts were with her - though the results were unfortunately the same.
Linking tonight is simple - Laurence Fishburne from "Armored" was in "School Daze", in which Spike Lee appeared, and of course he also makes a cameo in tonight's film.
THE PLOT: Semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.
AFTER: Given the name, I sort of thought this film would be more about crime - I'm betting Spike Lee is now wishing he saved this title for a crime film, rather than a slice-of-life family drama. But, as I've proven many times, there's no such thing as a scheduling mistake for me, I'll work with what I have.
Though I can't specifically relate to growing up in a black family in Brooklyn (I grew up in an almost-all white suburb of Boston), I related to the later part of the film, when the daughter, Troy, is sent down South to live with relatives for a few months. I wasn't quite sure of the reasons for this - was it because the family was struggling financially? Seems like reducing the family by one wouldn't have too much effect on the food budget...
As a kid, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' house, since my parents both worked. Fortunately my grandparents lived in the same town. After my grandfather died, my grandmother moved in with my parents. Occasionally I would spend time at my aunt and uncle's house, I remember house-sitting for them in the summer of 1980. Then they moved to New York state, and when I was attending NYU film school, I'd take a bus upstate to visit them on non-major holidays like Columbus Day, and meet my parents there for Thanksgiving and Easter. It was a good way to get out of the city for a day or two without traveling all the way back to Massachusetts.
When you stay over with relatives, that's a chance to see that not every family is the same - things may work differently at your aunt's house. And if you're used to just one way of life, it can be a chance to realize there are other ways, and then you're on the road to questioning your parents and becoming a grown-up.
Like those other films I watched earlier this week, this film also features the death of a major character - so the topic is quite timely. Some families choose to discuss health matters openly, while some just aren't set up that way. My mother's family tends to sweep this sort of thing under the rug, while my father will describe his kidney stones in intimate detail. I guess I'm a product of both schools of thought - when I'm sick my tendency is to try and hide it, but I know that's probably not the best course of action, and this impels me to talk about it.
While I was at NYU in the late 80's, Spike Lee was treated as the second coming - all of us film students were required to watch his thesis film, "Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads". And then when "Do the Right Thing" came out, forget about it... I've never been a big fan, his early stuff has always seemed WAY too self-indulgent for me, but I did finally like his film "Inside Man", which IS a solid heist film.
But there's a problem with making an autobiographical (or semi-autobiographical) film, and that's sticking too close to reality. Sure, you can always say, "Well, that's the way it happened." But is reality really the best screenwriter? Life doesn't always conform to Hollywood six-act structure, and if you're living a good life or a pretty lucky person, your life probably doesn't have as much conflict, or enough interesting characters, to make a good script. I think that's what happened here - Lee might have been raised in a large family, but can a film really tell the story of six kids in a Brooklyn apartment, and give each one the screen time he or she needs? Doubtful, so the film has to make a choice and concentrate on one or two of the kids, so several don't stand out from the pack. Therefore, they're not needed - so lose them. You can tell a tighter story with a family of three kids, and each will be more important in the long run.
I've toyed with the idea of making a script based on my first marriage, since we played a very prominent role-playing game with friends, and in a way that led to the end of the relationship. I'd employ a story-telling technique that I haven't seen used very often (which I won't reveal here), but I understand that to fit into a proper screenplay, some characters might need to be combined, or altered in some way, and other details would need to be exaggerated. Although life is often interesting, it rarely can compete with a Hollywood script, since movies are by nature an augmented reality.
And that's where "Crooklyn" falls short - it doesn't have the exaggerated tension or timeline seen in "Do the Right Thing". Little moments like a girl getting caught shoplifting a bag of potato chips, or the apartment's electricity being shut off - while they ring true, they just don't seem exciting enough to count as plot points in a film. It's not only arrogant to think that little moments of your life deserve to be preserved in film, it's also an all-too-easy screenwriting trap.
Starring Delroy Lindo (last seen in "The Cider House Rules"), Alfre Woodard (last seen in "Grand Canyon"), David Patrick Kelly (last seen in "Commando"), with cameos from Jose Zuniga, Isaiah Washington (last seen in "Hollywood Homicide"), Vondie Curtis-Hall (last seen in "Clear and Present Danger"), Bokeem Woodbine and RuPaul.
RATING: 3 out of 10 bounced checks
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