By Robert Goldrich

Spike Lee made his initial industry splash in 1983 when he won a Student Academy Award for his thesis film Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads. Fast forward to last month and Lee again earned special distinction from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), receiving an Oscar at the 7th annual Governors Awards for exceptional contributions to motion pictures. AMPAS president Cheryl Boone Isaacs cited his indelible impact on the independent filmmaking world and positive influence on young directors, writers and producers.

While the two Oscars separated by some 30-plus years—with a pair of Academy Award nominations in-between for Best Original Screenplay for 1989’s Do the Right Thing, and Best Documentary Feature for 1997’s 4 Little Girls—underscore an enduring industry impact, in no way does the latest honor represent a career bookend for the director/producer/writer who continues to show his penchant for breakthrough filmmaking with the recently released Chi-Raq, the very first production of Amazon Original Movies. Amazon plans to turn out about a dozen films annually that will be released in theaters prior to running exclusively on the company’s streaming service.

Chi-Raq brings an ancient Greek satire to the South Side of Chicago in order to raise awareness of a contemporary tragedy. Written some 2,500 years ago by Greek playwright Aristophanes, Lysistrata tells the story of a woman who ends a war by organizing a sex strike that forces powerful male warlords to put down their weapons. In Chi-Raq, written by Lee and Kevin Willmott, we are thrust into today’s gang warfare-riddled Chicago, which claims the lives of not only combatants but also innocent bystanders, including children caught in the crossfire. When a little girl is killed, the beautiful Lysistrata (portrayed by Teyonah Parris)—who’s in love with gang leader Demetrius “Chi-Raq” Dupree (Nick Cannon)—organizes a sex boycott until the fighting stops. The withholding of sex becomes a global movement in a bid to bring peace to Chicago and ravaged communities everywhere.

The title Chi-Raq is an amalgam of Chicago and Iraq, equating the U.S. city to a combat zone with rampant gun and gang violence resulting in a death tally (and still counting) that far exceeds the number of American lives lost in the Middle East war. Lee and Willmott raise awareness of this urban travesty through elements of drama mixed with a satiric tinge, and dialogue spoken in verse—yet the humor doesn’t dilute the profoundly tragic real-life situation gripping the city.

In addition to his Student Academy Award, Honorary Oscar, and two Academy Award nominations, Lee’s body of work has earned accolades at assorted competitions and festivals, a partial list spanning a pair of Golden Globe noms (Best Director and Best Screenplay for Do the Right Thing), a Special BAFTA Award, Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or nominations (Jungle Fever, Do the Right Thing), a Cannes Un Certain Regard Award nom (Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet), a Cannes Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Special Mention (Jungle Fever), a Cannes Award of the Youth-Foreign Film (She’s Gotta Have It), and Primetime Emmy nominations (including Outstanding Directing for Nonfiction Programming on the strength of When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts).

Lee has also made his mark in the advertising arena, directing notable commercials over the years. He’s additionally had a hand in creating high profile work through multicultural ad agency Spike DDB, a joint partnership between Lee and Omnicom Group’s DDB Worldwide.

SHOOT: Where did the inspiration come from to turn to an ancient Greek satire in order to tell the story of an ongoing modern-day tragedy in Chicago?

Lee: My co-writer Kevin Willmott. Years earlier he wrote this script titled Got To Give It Up, an adaptation of Lysistrata. We tried to get it made. No one wanted it.

A year ago, I called Kevin up and asked him if he still owned that property. I said, “We need to do it again. We need to write it again. The first attempt was set in a nondescript area. Now we need to make this contemporary film on Chicago’s South Side.” The whole Greek satire idea, though, came from Kevin Willmott.

SHOOT: This is a tragic story yet it’s told with elements of humor—somehow without diluting the seriousness and social importance of the tragedy. That’s quite a balancing act. Was that one of the biggest challenges this film posed to you?

Lee: The biggest challenge was how am I going to get this mother f..kr made. How were we going to get the money. Everybody said no but Amazon. It only takes one “yes” to open the gate. Amazon said yes at Sundance.

Being humorous with serious subject matter has been done before. Ours is not the first film to use satire. Kubrick did it with Dr. Strangelove. What’s more serious than the destruction of God’s planet by nuclear arms? Another major example is our source material. The great Greek playwright Aristophanes satirized ancient Greece all the time.

I will say, though, you’re right. Applying humor to a serious story is not an easy thing to do. You’ve got to juggle four or five balls in the air at the same time. But I was confident I could do it.

SHOOT: Among the collaborators you chose to do it with were production designer Alex DiGerlando and cinematographer Matthew Libatique, ASC. Why did you gravitate to them for Chi-Raq and what did they bring to the film?

Lee: Alex is a talented young production designer. I saw his work on Beasts of the Southern Wild, and he brought all his talents and skill to Chi-Raq. This was the first time I worked with him. 

I’ve worked with Matthew quite a lot. He shot Inside Man, She Hate Me, and Miracle At St. Anna for me. He’s a great talent. (Libatique was nominated for an Oscar in 2011 for Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.)

I also worked again with [costume designer] Ruth Carter who’s done 12 films with me starting with School Daze and now most recently with Chi-Raq. (Ruth E. Carter is a two-time Oscar nominee, the first coming in 1993 for Lee’s Malcolm X, and then in 1998 for Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.)

SHOOT: You won a Student Academy Award more than 30 years ago and last month received an honorary Oscar. Would you reflect on what the Motion Picture Academy recognition means to you and how far you’ve come since receiving that Student Oscar for your thesis film?

Lee: I have come a long way. It’s been a great trip but it’s not done yet. To me, that recent Oscar is like a halfway marker.

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