One of the great stories of contemporary cinema - the rise of Spike Lee from cult director to international superstar.
For nearly twenty years now, Spike Lee has been Black America's most prominent cultural figure. This is the story of his hard-fought rise to the heights of the film-making profession, drawn from a wealth of exclusive interviews with Lee himself, as well as a strong supporting cast of his equally outspoken friends and colleagues: from Samuel L. Jackson and Edward Norton to Rosie Perez and John Turturro, Branford Marsalis and Dr Henry Louis ('Skip') Gates. Every one of Lee's films has tackled a tough subject and caused a stir: from the frank female sexuality of She's Gotta Have It to the New York race riots of Do the Right Thing; the jazz scene in Mo' Better Blues; interracial sex in Jungle Fever; revolutionary pan-Africanism in Malcolm X; the 'war on drugs' in Clockers; Louis Farrakhan's 'Million Man March' in Get on the Bus; black poverty and pro-basketball in He Got Game . . .
As such, Lee has made himself a spokesman on US race relations; but he is also an entrepreneur and provocateur, who has made shrewd use of his gift for grabbing headlines. Kaleem Aftab's authorised biography chronicles Lee's bohemian Brooklyn upbringing, his film school education, his business interests, hobbies, and remarkable movie career, all in definitive detail. But the book also explores the many social issues and controversies that Lee's work has addressed and indeed generated; as well as the inspirational affect Lee has had upon his own (and subsequent) generation of black film-makers, through his boldly-named production company, 40 Acres and a Mule.
Spike Lee tells the controversial story of a true American original, through a lively chorus of voices that are not always in perfect agreement . . . but are never less than opinionated, amusing, and highly informative.
