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Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

Spike Lee

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Spike Lee
Age: 67
Born: 1957
Born: March 20
Actor
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Editor
Film Producer
Mascot
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Television Producer
Atlanta
Georgia
Sheldon Lee
Shelton J. Lee
Shelton Jackson Lee
Mars Blackmon
Film
Change
Women
Griffith
Going
Portrayed
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Black

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If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.
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Our greatness, our talent has never been the question. It's been a matter of grappling for control over what we do.
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For me, I believe in God, God is real.
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It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work.
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Stick around long enough, you'll get some grace.
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I didn't dream about being a director. I didn't know I wanted to do something with film until the summer between my sophomore and junior years at Morris College in Atlanta, Georgia.
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I don't like to use the word 'remake', I think reinterpretation is a better word. It's just a matter of respecting the source, and then trying to make your own film, and trying not to be inhibited by being so beholden to every single thing... We respect the source, but we make changes to it.
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Music is, for me, a great tool of a filmmaker, the same way cinematography, the acting, editing, post-production, the costumes are. You know, to help you tell a story.
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My people, my people, what can I say say what I can. I saw it but didn't believe it I didn't believe what I saw. Are we gonna live together? Together are we gonna live?
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American slavery was not a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It was a holocaust. My ancestors are slaves. Stolen from Africa. I will honor them.
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I am a hybrid. I do independent films and also do Hollywood films - I love them both.
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A woman who is very secure in herself, what she's about, what she wants to do, who probably figures that she's a prize catch-sooner or later he's going to come around.
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Racism in America absolutely exists - it is an issue. We need to fix it. We're a great country - probably the greatest country but we could be a hell of a lot greater.
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A spine to my films that's become more evident to me is that many are about the choices people make, and the reverberations of those choices. You go this way, or that way, and either way, there's going to be consequences.
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I don't dictate, you don't dictate to Stevie Wonder, not successfully.
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Everything I do is always scrutinised. But that's all I'll say about that.
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I don't think my films are going to get rid of racism or prejudice. I think the best thing my films can do is provoke discussion.
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You gotta make your own way. You gotta find a way. You gotta get it done. It's hard. It's tough. That's what I tell my students every day in class. I've been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I'm not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn't register with me.
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I used the principles of Kickstarter to make 'She's Gotta Have It.' We filmed that in 1985 to 1986. The final cost was $175,000. I didn't have that money. It was friends, grants, donations. We saved our bottles for the nickel deposit.
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I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.
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