Spike Lee: On The Creative Process

The Academy Award winning director and screenwriter Spike Lee grew up surrounded by jazz music in the house, around-the-clock trips to art museums and the theater, and amidst a family of creatives, artists, and academics. Thanks to his grandmother’s financial support, Lee completed his bachelor’s studies at Morehouse College, continuing his family’s legacy of attending America’s historic black colleges. Hitting his creative stride as a film studies major at NYU, Lee soon came out with his debut movie She’s Gotta Have It. Directing, producing, and starring in the film all before he turned 30, on a low-six-figure budget, Lee is considered a pioneer of the American independent film movement.

Beyond his artistic contributions to film and his political commitments to black empowerment, Lee has acted as a conduit for black talent into Hollywood since his early production days. He directed the breakthrough performances of actors Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and Rosie Perez and his film Jungle Fever featured the first performances of actresses Halle Berry and Queen Latifa.

Currently, photographer Howard Schatz has been working on a series titled “Above and Beyond, Video Interviews and Portraits of Extraordinary People in our Time” for which he wrote to Spike Lee. He then called himself “Hey, Spike here! I’m in!”.

Howard Schatz: Where does your creativity come from?

Spike Lee: My father was a great jazz musician, Bill Lee, composer of the scores for my films. My mother was a cinephile and wanted her children to be well-rounded. She took us to Broadway plays as well as museums, and libraries. And we went, kicking and screaming. That was the basis for our understanding of art and creativity. My grandmother saved the social security checks for her grandchildren’s education for 50 years.  Since I was the firstborn, my grandmother put me through Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia and NYU Graduate Film School. I come from historically black colleges.

I’ve been a tenured professor of film at NYU, Graduate Films for the last 30 years. I don’t stand in front of a class and lecture. I draw upon my own experience and let them know that there are dips and valleys. There are always exceptions but I believe that hard work pays off. If you’re a professor or a teacher, and you’re not learning from your students, you’re not doing the job. Because education has to be a flow. My students keep me young. To answer your question about where this creativity comes from. I’ve come to learn that you just have to be open.

HS: Do you create to please yourself or do you have an audience in mind?

SL: It depends on the project. For the most part, I’m writing for myself. Unless it’s a job when it’s not an original screenplay. But for example, in my film  “She’s Gotta Have It,” I wrote that in 12 days. You have to make the commitment. I understand how hard it is, that first day when you start writing and you’re looking at a blank piece of paper. You just gotta start. 

HS: Do you listen to others? My question has to do with editing. Everybody needs an editor who’s honest enough. Who loves them enough that they’ll be totally brutally honest.

SL: I have a very select group of people I let read in the early stages of the script. I think people and artists have to understand that, whether you’re a filmmaker or a photographer or a painter or a writer, this is very personal. You’re putting it out for the whole world to see and you might not always get the response you want. Miracles don’t happen every day. But when they do, it’s like everything came together in that moment. And that piece of art, no matter what art we’re talking about, it’s there forever. The great musicians, the great artists always talk about it wasn’t just them.  Something else, whatever it was, something else graced that particular moment to create a great piece of art.

HS: Can you take me through working on a film? You have a script, then what?

SL: Gotta get the money. You just gotta just keep whacking at it. No disrespect to other art forms but if you’re a painter or writer, or photographer, that’s not the same as the art of filmmaking. This art form is more collaborative and it costs a lot of money. 

HS: Where does taste come from? Are you born with it? Do you develop it?

SL: I think that taste is something that’s acquired. If you grew up in an artistic household you’re ahead of the game. I think that all individuals are born with gifts and if your parents aren’t exposing you— at a young age, as much as they can— then that gift within you is never gonna be found. So I’m happy my mother was dragging me to museums and plays. I did not want to go. But she said, I don’t care if you like it or not, you’re going. When we get exposed to something at a young age, it is natural that the children might want to pursue that. But there’s also the danger of the parents stuffing it down the kid’s throat.

HS: How have your creative journeys changed you in all these years?

SL: My journeys have changed because I’ve always been open to learning, and I never thought I could stop learning. While I was in film school, the great Japanese filmmaker Kurosawa was in the States doing interviews. A journalist asked Kurosawa: you are considered one of the greatest filmmakers ever, is there anything that you don’t know? Kurosawa said: there’s a whole universe of cinema I’ve still not learned. He was, like, 85 at the time. So, when one of my favorite filmmakers says that at that age, he still has a universe of cinema to learn. That made me sit up and say, okay! Until my last dying breath, I’m going to be learning and never get to that deadly space where I know it all.

HS: How does the skill of creating an original film differ from a documentary? 

SL: I don’t think you can break down creativity. With a documentary, you’re interviewing people but you still create to tell that story and not just have people just speaking in the camera.  I never want to be boxed in by saying, oh, I have to wear this hat as a narrative filmmaker, or I have to wear this hat as a documentary filmmaker. For me, it’s filmmaking. And you are telling the story, whether it’s a narrative or a documentary. 

HS: Do you find that your own inner drive, curiosity and desire to produce has changed at all over the years?

SL: No.  I’m as hungry as I was coming out of NYU Graduate Film School.