Was Mookie Sweeter than heaven or Hotter than hell?

Written for my Intro the Film class; the assignment was to analyze a film through the lens of mise-en-scène and to closely analyze a scene within the film.

Within Do the Right Thing, director Spike Lee activates the mise-en-scène to create friction and heat that is so intense it adds to the already present racial tensions within the story and ultimately causes the climactic event. The narrative structure of this film is unconventional. The film merely follows Mookie (Spike Lee) on his seemingly normal day and takes the audience through the inner workings of this Brooklyn community. The audience is not asked to engage with a plot as much as they are asked to observe this community on a day where tensions are at an all-time high. Lee lures the audience into this observational mindset by quickly and efficiently setting up the mise-en-scène. The passivity of the plot makes room for the character that Lee builds out of the mise-en-scène; the heat. This invisible character drives the tensions in the story and ultimately erupts with Radio Raheem’s (Bill Nunn) death and the subsequent riot.  

Firstly, the composition within this film is kinetic. The characters are always moving, and in most cases, the camera also takes on that kinetic energy and it is moving. This is exemplified in the opening shot of the film at minute marker 00:00:35. Tina (Rosie Perez) is dancing on a stage in front of a set of brownstones. The stop motion effect is meant to be jolting and already begins to build the friction and heat that the audience will become well accustomed to by the end of the movie. When she does begin to dance it has violent movements with punching. Yet, the violent movements flow fluidly with the dancing. This is to show that the racial tensions are being fought in this community every day, it is a part of the natural order of things. This contrasts a scene later in the film when Radio Raheem tells his story of love and hate at minute marker 00:50:00. The camera is handheld and holds both Mookie and Radio Raheem in frame, in a medium two-shot, making it feel like the audience is along for the walk with them. However, as soon as Raheem begins to tell his story the camera quickly pivots to be in Mookie’s perspective. The audience is now in Mookie’s head, the camera is made to feel like his eyes. Here both camera and character are moving. Lee briefly allows the audience into the mindset of Mookie, but only to closely observe Radio Raheem. All of which is so that he can further drive the narrative of warring sides and oppression. There are also several use cases of canted angles within the film in order to foreshadow the unforeseen occurring to these characters. The composition within Do the Right Thing is kinetic; just like people on a hot day, it is always moving trying to catch a breeze.

Continuously, the set design in this movie creates the most intense heat to convey to the audience the state the characters are in and to aid in raising the tension constantly. From the opening shot to the very last the prevalent color scheme is warm. Reds, oranges, and yellows send a clear message of the setting. This setting which has grown so hot it is affecting the better judgment of those enduring its wrath. “On a normal day, tempers might be held in check, the harsh word left unsaid, but today, the hottest day of the year, it's meltdown time and all the emotional hydrants are opened wide” (Hinson). Within this film, the characters hold back their thoughts and opinions less and less as the heat persists. The color and set design evoke this red-hot emotion out of the characters and fans the flames as the day only gets hotter. Sal’s pizza shop has yellow walls and booths. There are cans, cups, and trays throughout which are red. Within the pizzeria, the warm colors give no reprieve to the beaming and ever-present sun that is heating up this neighborhood. Even under the cover of a roof, there is no safety from the heat. It is everywhere and it permeates everything. So, when Sal’s Pizzeria is the central location for the climax it makes sense. The place that could have been safe from the heat and tension is actually the reason for the tension to snap. The heat has irreparably permeated this storefront. Similarly, scenes that take place inside feel just as hot as outside. For example, at the apartment where Mookie and Jade (Joie Lee) live the heat is an ever-present character. Beginning with minute marker 00:07:04, the living room is full, it isn’t barren, it is lived in. There’s no room to walk or move. There is a stifling nature to the set here. This is reinforced with Mookie choosing to wake his sister up by essentially suffocating her. This action pairs with the internal set design of tight spaces and creates friction. Making clear that the set design either chose to create and intensify the heat of that day or intensify the friction by creating a suffocating effect on rooms that the sun did not reach.

On that same note, the lighting in this film seeks to duplicate the intensity and ferocity of the sun by being high key. “In most cases, whatever efforts are made to alter the available light wind up disguised so that the light appears to come from natural sources” (Nichols). The light within this film always comes from the same position that the sun would be at that time of day and is always a bright yellow. The lighting brightens over the course of the film much like the sun. As the true nature of the narrative reveals itself there is a peak brightness achieved within the lighting of the film. At minute marker 00:44:15, Mookie feels emboldened enough to confront Pino (John Turturro) on his racism. During this scene the lighting is the brightest it has ever been inside of Sal’s pizza, this indicates that it is noon. This high noon lighting is double-downed on in the following scene wherein a montage every character breaks the fourth wall and says some racist stereotypical belief about another ethnicity. The lighting representing the sun and thus the heat is key to where characters are at emotionally. This event signifies the bubbling over of their frustrations and has them put a voice to said frustrations to cool off. That being said, inside scenes where windows are limited and blinds are drawn, are entrenched in darkness. This darkness acts much like the set design because it seeks to create a stuffy nature that makes characters feel trapped and causes friction. The result of this heat and friction is fire. A fire that shows rage and passion. The fire lights the scene in contrarian low-key lighting at the end of the excruciatingly long and hot day. Lee ultimately uses the presence of light not to show the good or evil nature of a character, but to add to this omniscient character of heat.

Subsequentially, the costume, hair, & makeup within Do the Right Thing gradually moves along over the course of the movie to show how the heat is getting stronger and the characters are wearing thin. An example of the evolving costumes comes at minute markers 00:17:00, 00:38:00, and 01:09:45. Here the audience is exposed to the evolution of the appearance of these three men as they sit against this saturated, bright-hot, red wall in the sun. They are all wearing loose and light clothing with hats to shield themselves from the sun. At first, they are barely even sweating. The three men joke among themselves lightheartedly. When the audience returns to them closer to noon they are in a more disheveled state because the heat has grown more intense. The characters have more buttons undone, one character has his hat off, and they are all very sweaty. Here the three men establish an ‘us versus them’ philosophy and make enemies of all non-Black people. When the audience returns once again afternoon, there are even more buttons undone, two characters have their hats off, one character has rolled his pant legs up, and they are still sweaty. The heat is no longer at its most intense but the resilience of the men is gone. Now the three men establish ‘I against the world’ philosophies and fight among the community they were just earlier fighting with. This shows the evolution of heat. Even though it was not as hot as earlier in the day the characters are withering away. The heat is getting the best of them and their attitudes in these clips reflect that.

Finally, the activation of the mise-en-scène to become a character of its own is particularly fascinating in the first conflict at Sal’s Pizzeria at minute marker 00:18:25. Buggin Out (Giancarlo Esposito) patrons the restaurant but asks Sal why there aren’t any Black people being honored in the same way white people are in the pizzeria in a Black community. The composition of the scene works to raise the heat and tension by keeping the characters stagnant as the tension increases between them. Sal takes many pauses and Pino even stills his father as he is on the defense. Buggin Out pauses before starting the conflict. The lack of kinetic energy enhances how on a day as hot as this, keeping still will only make things worse. When Mookie moves and removes Buggin Out from the shop Lee makes clear that the only way to beat the heat is to be active. The set design within this scene is permeated in warm colors, which add to the heat as a pseudo-character. The most notable piece of set design is when Pino drops a red cup off at Buggin Out’s table. It is a subtle transfer of heat that allows Lee to convey to the audience these characters are very passionate about this topic but are on opposite sides. The lighting in this scene makes clear that the sun is in abundance but not at its peak. The light shines brightly and distinctly through the front glass but it does not seep into every corner of the pizzeria; the heat has not seeped into every corner of the pizzeria. The tension much like the sun has not peaked. As Mookie reenters the pizzeria he is briefly hidden from the glow of the sun while Buggin Out is completely entrenched in it. Paired with the advice “stay Black”, it is clear that Lee is conveying the only way to find reprieve on such a hot day is to “stay Black”. The costume, hair, and makeup of this scene convey the relaying heat from the sun. Everyone is sweaty, whether that be from the pizza oven or the beaming hot sun. The sweat reinforces in the mind of the audience the unbearable nature of the heat that the characters are in. This entire scene has diegetic sound. The audience can’t be pulled away by hearing any non-diegetic sounds. When the characters within feel strongly about the point they are making they increase the volume at which they are speaking and use the walls of Sal’s Pizzeria to create some reverberations. Lee is making a point here, that the characters who voice these opinions are not the only ones who think this way. The overall intent of the filmmaker Spike Lee was to create a character, the heat, who is omniscient and has a great amount of influence on all of the characters within the film.

Works Cited

Hinson, Hal. “'Right Thing' Sizzling City.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 30 June 1989, www.washingtonpost.com./archive/lifestyle/1989/06/30/right-thing-sizzling-city/49f2d530-53f3-4d5f-a7d0-b1efa9067f13/. 

Nichols, Bill, and Bill Nichols. “Chapter 1, ‘Film as a Language.’” Engaging Cinema: An Introduction to Film Studies, W.W. Norton & Co., New York, New York, 2010, pp. 29–67.