Wingfield Do the Right Thing

Emily Wingfield

Film Analysis

Dr. Permenter

30 June 2012

Blog 3 – Do The Right Thing

Washington Post

Heat plays a major role in this film; not only is the weather scorching hot, the racial tension is even hotter. The heat (weather wise) represents the racial heat on this street. Although, the majority of the heat is on the street with the Italians and Asians supposedly taking over the African Americans street – the heat is also in the kitchen of the pizza shop. The heat in the pizza shop is espically at the end of the film when Buggin Out and Radio Rasheem come into the pizza shop and Sal ‘kill’ his radio. The shop is then destroyed and the heat is taken to the limit with starting a fire to burn it down. Also, the use of bright reds, oranges and yellows symbolize the heat in the film. This can be seen throughout the whole film but mainly at the end when all the chaos happens with the pizza shop. The people living on that street had taken enough heat and were burning up to do something about it – whether is was right or wrong.

Emerson

Emerson’s main point about the film was do the characters in the film ‘do the right thing?’ And there is no clear-cut answer, because if each character would have taken a step back or listened to what the other character was saying, none of the rage and chaos might have happened.  The words wake up, love and hate are used throughout as guides for what audiences should take away from the film. If we would wake up and love instead of hate, things like burning down a pizza shop because he doesn’t have any black photos might not have happened. The radio DJ who is telling everyone this through the speakers, is the only character that stays cool throughout the film, both figuratively and literally.

Rogerebert

What people should take away from this film is not that it is filled with hate or love, but that it is a symbol of racism in America still exists today. Although today, I believe that the racial tension has been turned on to the Middle Eastern people because of September 11, but it still poses as a great example. Love and hate in the film can be seen when the three men sitting on the sidewalk are discussing how one day a black man will open a shop on this street. One of those three black men laughs in his face and basically says that it will never happen; he then proceeds to stand up and walk over to the fruit stand that is run by an Asian family to buy something. This is almost refreshing to see in the film because one of the black men that occupy the street is somewhat okay with other races moving in. 

Some shots that I would like to mention that were used throughout the film are the ones that stuck out the most to me. First, the oblique angle shots: this truly was disconcerting and make me feel exactly how Lee wanted me to feel – uncomfortable and knew something wrong was going on. If we consider these oblique angle shots and try to picture them as just being a mid shot of the character, it would not have the same effect but because these shots were so disconcerting, it gives off a more evident sense that the tension is really high.

Some other shots that made me feel uncomfortable were reaction shots, or shots that I felt like the character was talking directly to me. This was in the middle of the film when the camera zoomed into to the character while they were speaking slurs about other races. This made me feel uncomfortable because I felt like each character was talking directly to me and almost like they were saying those things to me.