She's Gotta Have It

She's Gotta Have It was another one of those movies that I had put in my "that's a classic I actually DO want to watch" vault in my head that just so happened to pop up on Netflix for me at the right time. I've heard of Spike Lee and his work seems to be held in great regard, and I'm always into first films, which this is his. He wrote, directed, and edited this movie, which is the level of auteur I hope I can reach one day. I was even more impressed when I realized that he edited this on his own during the film days, meaning he was clipping the film himself. In an age with easy lossless editing, it's so easy to forget that it hasn't always been this easy.

The movie was not what I really expected it to be. I mean this in general but primarily I was surprised by its style and aesthetic. I thought it was going to be a bright, Hollywood-set type '80s movie (I had no idea how low-budget the movie was going in). Maybe you can blame the graphic design too, because I based a lot of my expectations off of the poster in the thumbnail. I mean come on, they're in color on the poster!

But instead of giving me arm-warmer, bright neon '80s vibes, it evoked feelings of film noir, with a camera framing not unlike some of what we've seen from French New Wave and a score (by Spike Lee's father no less!) that is impressively true to the classic film style of scores that it imitates. I also didn't know that this film would be entirely in black-and-white with the exception of a single scene. This was a pleasant surprise, since watching things like Raging Bull and Breathless within the past year have made me very attracted to the "feel" that black and white gives off. I found myself literally just watching the film grain cast upon people's skin and the walls just jitter around. I loved it! I feel like something about that soft look gives a film a certain sense of mystique, and this film was oozing with it.

I was also quite struck by that surprise color scene that happens smack dab in the middle of the film. I believe it was meant to symbolize how bright and lovely Jamie's gesture to Nola was, and it does a pretty good job at doing that for me. It also reminds the viewer that despite the look of the film, we actually are in the '80s after all.

I may have already mentioned this on the blog before, but I tend to like character-driven films and this is another good example. Every personality in the entire movie is strong. This is crucial given that this film has a cast of really only 4-6 important characters. I'm also into drama-comedies (it's what I tend to write when I write scripts) and especially ones focused on social dynamics and relationships like this one are always so compelling to me, and help to improve and inspire my own work.

I don't want to even try to talk about the plot, because I know I'll get sucked down a rabbit hole, but the movie does a great job of keeping the audience invested in what's going on. This was a movie that never made me want to take a break from it, which I honestly can't say about your average movie. It also didn't occur to me in 2022 that a movie like this would be significant in another sense in 1986 when it came out: it is now viewed as being racially and gender/sexually-progressive for its mostly positive and naturalistic portrayal of a black woman who holds a great deal of power within the film. Overall, this has made me want to branch out into a bunch of different directions: I want to watch more Spike Lee movies, more "first" movies, more black-and-white movies, and more drama-comedies.