Spike Lee

Spike Lee born March 20 1957 is an American filmmaker and actor He was born Shelton Lee in Atlanta Georgia At a very young age he moved from precivil rights Georgia to Brooklyn New York His father was a jazz musician and his mother a school teacher His mother dubbed him Spike due to his tough nature He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University After graduating he went to the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program He made a controversial short The Answer 1980 a reworking of DW Griffiths The Birth of a Nation 1915 a tenminute film Lee went on to produce a 45minute film Joes BedStuy Barbershop We Cut Heads 1983 which won a student academy award Lees next film The Messenger in 1984 was somewhat biographical In 1986 Spike Lee made the film Shes Gotta Have It 1986 a comedy about sexual relationships The movie was made for 175000 dollars and made seven million Since then Lee has become a wellknown intelligent and talented film maker His next movie was School Daze 1988 which was set in a historically black school and focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities of which he was a strong critic portraying them as materialistic irresponsible and uncaring Lee went on to do his landmark film Do the Right Thing 1989 a movie specifically about his own town in Brooklyn New York The movie garnered an Oscar nomination for Danny Aiello for supporting actor It also sparked a debate on racial relations Lee went on to produce the jazz biopic Mo Better Blues 1990 which showed his talent for directing and acting and was the first of many Spike Lee films to feature Denzel Washington His next film Jungle Fever 1991 was about interracial dating Lees handling of the subject proved yet again highly controversial Lees next film was the selftitled biography of Malcolm X 1992 which had Denzel Washington portraying the civil rights leader The movie was a success and resulted in an Oscar nomination for Washington His next films were the comparatively light Crooklyn 1994 and the intense crime drama Clockers 1995 In 1996 Lee directed two movies the badly received comedy Girl 6 1996 and the politically pointed Get on the Bus 1996 about a group of men going to the Million Man March His next film He Got Game 1998 proved to be another excursion into the collegiate world as he shows the darker side of recruiting college athletes The movie in limited release yet again featured Denzel Washington In 2000 came Bamboozled which made a mockery out of television and the way AfricanAmericans are perceived by white America and the way AfricanAmericans perceive themselves The movie however was a resounding critical success Lee also has produced films like New Jersey Drive 1995 Tales from the Hood 1995 and Drop Squad 1994 He also has produced and or directed movies about Huey P Newton Jim Brown and has commented in many documentaries about varied subjects Lee is an obsessive New York Knicks fan He and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee have two children