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→ Explore the Director’s Inspiration: Spike Lee gallery, part of the museum’s core exhibition Stories of Cinema .
Shelton Jackson “Spike” Lee (b. 1957) brings his signature approach to every “Spike Lee Joint.” Not only a director but a writer, producer, and actor, he exercises a high level of creative control over his projects. Lee’s extensive and provocative filmography reveals an unwavering devotion to examining race relations in the United States from a Black perspective. Lee seeks to jostle his viewers out of complacency and often employs techniques to break the fourth wall, such as having his characters tell the audience to “wake up!” His formal filmmaking techniques have been carefully honed from a lifetime spent both making and studying film, reflecting the inspiration he draws from other moviemakers working across a range of eras, genres, and global cinemas. Inspired by the Academy Museum’s Director’s Inspiration: Spike Lee gallery—where visitors are immersed in Lee’s filmography, collaborations, and influences through posters, props, costumes, scripts, photographs, and more surprises from the director’s personal collection—this film series of the same name courses a journey through Lee’s Joints and works by other directors that have impacted his evolution as a filmmaker.
Programmed by Bernardo Rondeau in collaboration with Dara Jaffe Notes by Robert Reneau
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