Do The Right Thing Tim Connor

Tim Connor
Do The Right Thing Blog

    Robert Erbert says, “Do the Right Thing is not filled with brotherly love, but it is not filled with hate, either. It comes out of a weary, urban cynicism that has settled down around us in recent years.” I would have to agree with this because, while the concepts are there, in Mookies family, Radio’s rings, Mother and the Mayor, the overtone of the story has a feeling of everyday life. There is no extreme love chase going on. There isn’t radical hate and a vendetta going throughout the movie, but there is a taste of both throughout. Erbert says, “Do the Right Thing tells an honest, unsentimental story about those who are left behind” and I have to agree. The realistic nature of the story more or less just tells it like it is.
    Jim Emerson says “In both School Daze and Do the Right Thing, those words -- "Wake up!" -- are aimed directly at the movies' characters -- and audiences. They're words Lee hopes people will carry with them as they leave the theater and head back out onto the streets themselves. Virtually all the colorfully eccentric characters who populate Lee's movies could use a little consciousness-expanding to wake them up. And after eight years of blithe complacency and denial under Ronald Reagan, so could most Americans.” I also agree that this is a major theme for the movie. The characters are all trying to communicate that equality is a must, but don’t see the violence that is brewing around them. Mookie keeps trying to moderate the situation, but he has his own issues that he has to wake up to before he can really move forward and start mending fences between the different groups of the block. Bugout, Radio, and Smilie all wake up to the conclusion that they need to force equality. The older son needs to wake up to the fact that his brother can make his own choices and that he cannot force his racist ideals on others. Sal has to wake up to the fact that until the tensions are diminished, it doesn’t matter who’s fault the murder or fire is. The theme is imbedded so deeply and the voicing of it takes the movie to a new level.
    Desson Howe says, “But in this case, you're going to love the heat. As in heat-of-the-moment racial flare-ups in a black New York neighborhood where Italians serve pizza, Koreans sell vegetables but blacks do all the buying. Why love this kind of heat? Because Lee has fused political message, gripping drama and community comedy with finesse.” This is an awesome way of going into the racial tensions and a concept that I didn’t think of at all until I read this. The heat is extraordinarily symbolic of the rising in tension and could also be foreshadowing to the fiery ending of the movie. Every time the tension builds a little bit more there is another mentioning of the heat, the radio is constantly mentioning it, the first Dialogue between Sal and his sons is about the Air Conditioning, and the fire hydrant scene are all constant reminders that that heat is going up, so much so that the world is on fire with racial tension.
    The scene where Pino is screaming at Smilie shows that he is powerful and to be feared because of the angle that it is shot at. The scene where Sal has the bat shows that he is out-manned or that something bad is going to happen to him because the angle is looking down on him, making him look small and helpless in the eyes of Radio. The shot between Mookie and Tina are kissing is interesting because Mookie is in the foreground, but darkened and Tina is more lit up. The extreme closeness of the shot makes it seem more intimate and an shot that was further away.
   The camera for this movie creates the feeling. The scene between Radio and Bugout where they talk about boycotting Sal’s is shot from a low angle which shows that they are powerful or being empowered, in this context they are empowering themselves. Radio is on the left, but Bugout is wearing brightly colored clothes because of this our eyes are drawn to Bugout, but it shows that Radio is still an important character. The angle of the camera is also off to Bugout’s side, which shows that he is the one who is creating the scenario.