Word: barbershop
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Spike Lee's first feature film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads and a documentary of the making of Do The Right Thing, both running at the Brattle Theater this weekend, provide a close look at the development and practice of one of America's most talented modern filmmakers. The hour-long documentary focuses on more than the technical details of filmmaking; it is concerned with the making of a provocative film in the context of its set (filmed on location in Brooklyn) and its time...
...Stuy Barbershop...
...Stuy Barbershop, on the other hand, leaves us grateful it is only an hour long. It is no match for Spike Lee's later work. This is not to say it should be entirely dismissed, for it does allow some insight into his origins as a director...
...story is of a barbershop which doubles as a headquarters for playing the "numbers," an illegal lottery. Centering around the life of a barber, his wife--a social service worker, and a boy he takes on to help him in the shop, the film involves dealings with gangsters involved in the numbers game and a failed attempt to steal money from them and flee to Georgia...
...Stuy Barbershop never becomes very gripping, perhaps because the dialogue and acting is excessively forced. The editing at times is also unnaturally jarring, for no apparent reason. However, there are moments of pure Spike Lee: when the barber awakens to a pair of gangsters looming over him in an unnerving point of view or when a young boy is taught by his older friend how to swear with the correct hand gestures...