Do The Right Thing
Yin and the Yang
Do The Right Thing presents New York as a universe of paired dualities. Black and white. Yin and Yang. Hot and cold. These are the most obvious examples, but the same theme runs throughout the movie. English versus Spanish. Lakers versus Celtics. Work versus family. Miller High Life versus Miller Lite. Youth versus age. Public Enemy versus Frank Sinatra. Working hard versus hardly working. Martin versus Malcolm. Older brother versus younger brother. Ossie Davis versus Ruby Dee. Root beer versus cream soda. Police versus citizens. On every level of the movie, there’s always an argument brewing about something, always a threat of confrontation.
That’s the basis of Do The Right Thing; the structure demands a different metaphor. Do The Right Thing is a potboiler, its large ensemble cast spends the whole movie simmering on a hot day in Bedord-Stuyvesant until everything boils over in an explosion of violence. Spike Lee does an outstanding job of assembling a diverse and talented cast, giving every character a moment or two, giving a hearing to every point of view, no matter how obnoxious.
The multiple points of view expressed throughout Do The Right Thing suggests that things are more complicated than black and white, while giving a number of good actors a chance to shine. Danny Aiello has the best part as Sal, the owner of a local pizza joint who is at turns paternal and hostile, both to his family and to his customers. Spike Lee (looking almost impossibly young here) is Mookie, the pizza deliveryman, at the center of a complex web of alliances and loyalties. Ossie Davis is brilliant as Da Mayor, a lonely voice of reason hiding behind a beer can. Samuel L. Jackson betrays a hint of brilliance to come as Senor Love Daddy, the movie’s moving but ineffectual voice of tolerance. And Bill Nunn manages to be both menacing and serene as Radio Rahim. (Oddly enough, Nunn is currently starring as an NYPD member in the new Denis Leary series.)
At its best, Do The Right Thing is a portrait of a neighborhood, complete with outcasts and leaders and parent figures and children and shopowners. This requires a broad range of actors turning in good performances, and it is the sum total of these performances that makes Do The Right Thing a classic movie. It’s a movie with no standout great performances, but plenty of solid, memorable smaller roles that stick in one’s mind.
Do The Right Thing does an excellent job of using its cast to set up the myriad of conflicts it describes. However, the movie holds little to no hope that these conflicts can — or maybe even should — be resolved. Ultimately, the conflicts break apart in a shattering ending, and ending that suggests that there may never be any resolution to the problems the movie identifies. Do The Right Thing is fine work, touching on the yin and the yang of social divides, but its counsel is the counsel of despair.