Spike Lee--A Jump Shot Into the Big Time

Spike Lee had just screened his new film, “School Daze,” for a studio-recruited audience of 250 college students at the Baldwin Cinema in Baldwin Hills.

That’s Baldwin Hills. Not Beverly Hills.

Beverly Hills is home to the Hollywood power structure, with whom the outspoken 30-year-old film maker has made an uneasy alliance after the surprise success of his 1986 low- low -budget hit, “She’s Gotta Have It.”

But predominantly black Baldwin Hills is an important proving ground for Lee, who seemed more delighted by the laughter and applause from his black college crowd than any critical plaudits he might receive. (Some reviewers dubbed him “the black Woody Allen,” a moniker the self-described basketball-junkie hates almost as much as the Boston Celtics.)

“School Daze,” Lee’s first major studio film, is a “comedy with music,” offering a raucous look at black college fraternity initiation rites, anti-apartheid rallies and house-quaking homecoming dances--all colored by the rivalry between two campus factions, the Wannabees and the Jigaboos.

But getting it made was serious business for Lee. He says he has constantly fought with Columbia Pictures, which he accused of trying to “ghettoize” the film in its marketing campaign. So in a 45-minute question-and-answer period, Lee was ready to slam-dunk when a student lobbed him a question about the difficulty of financing black films in Hollywood.

“I really feel I was put here on this Earth to make films for blacks,” he said, his voice rising with emotion. “We go to the movies all the time, but for the most part we never see ourselves as we’d like to be or as we think we could be. But it’s time to stop blaming everything on Hollywood.

“Black people just buy, buy, buy. We got to start owning stuff. And we got to stop spending so much time worrying about white people and what they think. Let’s worry about what we think.”

Lee was preaching now. “That’s one thing this movie’s about--the folks that come out of black colleges who just want to make a lot of money and buy a BMW. I got dogged by the black colleges ‘cause they thought this film was a negative portrayal of black people. Well, you hear that stuff about all the other people holding us back. But it’s often our own black folk that get down on us. That’s got to stop--we shouldn’t let that stuff come between us.”

Lee shyly lowered his head as the crowd broke into applause. Tugging nervously on a pair of Nike sweats, he quickly pointed to another questioner. A slender girl in a print dress wondered: “Are you married?”

Lee laughed. “No.” He cocked his head. “Next question please!”

It makes perfect sense that much of “School Daze’s” drama should revolve around the thorny issue of black assimilation. Lee calls it the “crossover game.” Where do you pass that fine line between making it in white society--and losing touch with your heritage?

“I don’t like to preach about it,” Lee said later that night, having a sandwich in his hotel room. “But my family always taught me to be proud of our heritage. I never viewed being black as a negative.

“And I always thought that if something like black music could be such a great gift to American culture, why couldn’t film be the same way?”

Lee fell silent for a moment. “That whole crossover mentality is crazy. You see it with a lot of black pop singers, whose success has been based on black audiences. Suddenly they say, ‘I’m tired of being on “Soul Train.” I want to be on MTV.’

“The classic example is Lionel Richie. Man, his Commodores stuff was great. But look at his music now. . . . It’s not just him. Diana Ross--she’s gone too. And Whitney Houston. Hey, she missed the whole cycle. She was processed from the start!”

Lee shrugged. “You can be successful without playing that crossover game. But you got to believe in yourself, ‘cause the media, the movie studios and the record companies--they’re going to use you and then dump you, just the way that owners do in sports when a football or basketball star can’t perform anymore.

“That’s why you can’t lose touch with your roots. ‘Cause when you try to go back to your black audience, they may not take you back.”

Lee was equally impatient with critics--black and white--who claim that “School Daze” perpetuates negative black stereotypes. Told that one black viewer was distressed by the film’s big funk number, “Da Butt,” which features an auditorium full of bikini-clad dancers gyrating to a go-go beat, Lee wearily shook his head.

“I’m always being accused of something,” he said. “Those are the same people who try to disown James Brown or Muddy Waters, saying they’re too backward or too country--or to use a better word--too black.

“We had the same problem trying to film at Morehouse. They booted us out in the middle of shooting there. The president of the school was upset because he heard we used (an obscenity) in the film--and if parents heard that word they wouldn’t let their sons be Morehouse men.”

Lee tapped his chest. “Hey, I loved going to that school. You get a nurturing experience at a black college that you can’t get anywhere else. But you can still criticize the things that aren’t right, can’t you?

“If Morehouse had their way, they’d probably deny I even went there.” He laughed, then bellowed in a mock-baritone: “ ‘No, sir. He didn’t go here!”’

Of course, if anyone has worked the crossover game to perfection, it’s Lee. Wiry and intense, he wears thick spectacles and comes armed with a lethal wit, especially when discussing Hollywood studio execs or his beloved New York Knicks’ porous defense.

He grew up in Brooklyn, part of a middle-class family. His mother took him to Broadway plays, his father worked as a jazz pianist (he’s helped score Lee’s films), while Spike was the third generation of his family to attend Atlanta’s Morehouse College.

After graduating from NYU film school, Lee made “She’s Gotta Have It.” The film was shot in 12 days for $175,000. Thanks to a shrewd marketing campaign by Island Pictures, the low-budget comedy was also a surprise hit, appealing to a substantial white audience.

It’s testimony to Lee’s chameleonlike appeal that black admirers, like actor Ossie Davis, compare him to Malcolm X while his white critical supporters have dubbed him the black Woody Allen--a tribute that Lee considers strange, since it’s almost impossible to find a black face in any Allen film.

Lee has grown accustomed to such contradictions. Less than an hour after his lecture on black capitalism in film, Lee was holed up in his hotel room with a pair of Nike marketing executives, approving a new line of T-shirts and sportswear that features Mars Blackmon, the character he played in “She’s Gotta Have It.”

(A pair of Nike Air Jordan TV commercials which feature Lee clowning around on the basketball court with Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan are already airing nationwide.)

When the Nike execs praised his new film, Lee playfully retorted: “I know you saw Adidas all over that movie, didn’t you. But you guys were asleep.”

One of Lee’s pals, a local sportswriter, asked the real success question--has he scored better Knicks tickets? Lee raised a hand shoulder-high. “I’m in the yellow (seats) now. But the only way I’ll ever get better seats is if I do a film for Paramount (a studio owned by Gulf & Western, which also owns Madison Square Garden).”

Lee chuckled. “Man, then I’d be sitting on the bench. It’s going to be in my contract!”

Right now, Lee needs a better relationship with Columbia Pictures. He’s been at odds with the studio since David Puttnam and David Picker, “School Daze’s” two key backers, left the studio late last year.

Their sudden departure left the film in the hands of new studio head Dawn Steel, who Lee said he’s stopped talking to after a series of telephone shouting matches.

“With David Picker and Puttnam, it was the ideal situation between the independent film maker and the Hollywood studio,” Lee said quietly. “They both had strong opinions, but they didn’t try to ram ‘em down your throat. They allowed you to grow as a film maker.

“Since heads rolled over there, it hasn’t been the same. The relationship has almost been adversarial, which isn’t productive for either of us.

“Dawn Steel told me she liked the film and that they’d work hard on it. But every time we’ve talked on the phone since, we seem to end up yelling at each other. She lives and dies by marketing and research--she sends everything out for research.

“But this isn’t ‘Footloose’ or ‘Flashdance.’ This is a different kind of movie.”

Lee also complained that Columbia has refused to spend “any money” on a TV ad campaign and “given us the stigma of being ghettoized” as a black film.

“Let me give you a perfect example,” he said with a new edge in his voice. “Three weeks ago I got a call from the Columbia people who were in a panic saying I had to push back my release date because some movie I’d never heard of--’Action Jackson’--was coming out the same weekend. It’s this black ‘RoboCop’ picture. And they tell me Orion Pictures is spending all this money and it’s got Carl Weathers and Vanity. . . . “

Lee was hot now. “Come on--my film’s not appealing to the same audience at all. But they think that we’re all some monolithic black group out there.

“You know how I hate that Woody Allen analogy. But if I’m that kind of film maker--well I don’t see any studio worrying about having a Woody Allen movie coming out the same week as a Chuck Norris movie. It’s the same blind mentality. And I don’t mean to pick on Columbia--it’d probably be the same at any other studio.”

Steel refused to comment. However, Ed Russell, Columbia Pictures senior vice president of publicity and promotion, said, “We’ve been very supportive of the film. Spike’s been on the road for three weeks doing interviews in 15 major markets, plus we’ve done radio ads, other personal appearances and word-of-mouth screenings. We’re not just aiming for a black audience--we’re trying to reach a wide spectrum of youth and upscale markets.”

Lee may have his beefs with Columbia. But many Hollywood insiders--from studio execs to journalists--have complaints about Lee, saying he’s arrogant, abrasive and often difficult to work with.

“Oh yeah, I’ve heard that,” he said coolly. “How many times have you heard people say the same thing about black athletes? For years, they said that about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. If you’re a black man and you stand up for what you believe in, suddenly you get labeled arrogant or difficult. They don’t say that stuff about white athletes. I hear Larry Bird cuss people out all the time--but with him, it’s OK.”

Despite these complaints, Lee insists he has no regrets about making a major studio film. “The important thing is that I’m doing what I like the most--making movies. I’ve just realized you got to fight for everything--who’s doing your poster, your publicity, you name it.”

He offered a victory smile. “ ‘Cause if you don’t fight, you just get run over.”