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Review: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA / Spike Lee (2008)

September 27th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Miracle at St. Anna (2008)
Directed by Spike Lee
Written by James McBride from his novel
Starring: Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Valentina Cervi, Matteo Sciabordi & D. B. Sweeney
Running Time: 160 min.
Aspect Ratio:

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

It all began when Spike Lee objected to the fact that there were no African Americans in Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. The first film details the story behind the famous photo of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima (none of whom were black), while its companion piece assumes the Japanese point-of-view. Why not just make one of the guys into a black Jewish lady Eskimo?

In an attempt to stir up some pre-release publicity, Lee made his indignation known. Clint responded with: “If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate.’”

Flags is one of the few Clint Eastwood films that you will ever hear me knock. I do not go to see a Clint Eastwood movie for its messages any more than I would watch an Astaire, Rogers musical for the bridging sequences. Clint is a master visual storyteller and while his films have become progressively morose as the decade passes, he never once mounted a soap box. Flags is a predictable war film with a labored subplot concerning a “drunken Injun.’” The treatment becomes so forced and obvious that it begins to border on stereotype enforcement.

If only I could report that Spike’s handling of race matters in Miracle of St. Anna made Clint’s depiction of Ira Hayes look admirable. In this one instance, both directors are in sync. D.B. Sweeney is the token nice white guy while other all pigment challenged actors are racist soldiers, Italian comic relief or Nazis.

An arrogant white officer, who doesn’t believe the accuracy of information radioed in by a black soldier under his command, unwittingly aims at his own platoon. To expand his feud with Clint to near Charlie McCarty/W.C. Fields-like proportions, Spike cast Eastwood look-alike Robert John Burke.

Seen here in a still from something called Gossip Girl, Burk might look like a bad stretch of Gunny Highway. You have to believe me that when he’s made-up and dressed to play General Ned Almond, Burk looks like Clint’s younger brother Chip Eastwood. They swear alike, they walk alike; at times they even talk alike. You can lose your mind! Almond refers to the Buffalo Soldiers as “Eleanor Roosevelt n—ers,” and the Clint-clone is one of the few white characters in the film instructed to utter the invective. That’ll teach Clint not to rewrite history!

Long before Clint, Jr. enters the picture, Spike tackles another beloved all-American icon. The film opens in 1983 with a clip of John Wayne once again winning the war, this time in The Longest Day. It’s another example of all bluster and no luster as Lee’s Hector Negron (Laz Alonso rendered practically unrecognizable under pounds of aging latex) sits before his TV ranting at the Duke. If I ever get to make a movie, I vow to have a black dude parked in front of a TV set watching the insufferable Lilies of the Field. “Damn,” I’d have him mumble. “Only way that Sidney Poitier can appear next to a white woman is if she’s blind or a nun.” Poitier and Wayne were both products of their respective eras: one was a movie superstar that created memorable characters in dozens of American masterworks. Sidney Poitier made soft message pictures. If given the choice, I’d rather Rooster Cogburn came to dinner. At least I’d have a few cheap laughs.

Continue reading Review: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA / Spike Lee (2008)

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Clint Eastwood to Spike Lee: “Shut your face!”

June 6th, 2008 by Scott Marks

Taking time away from his busy schedule of making movies that no one sees, Spike Lee decided to generate much needed publicity by broadsiding master filmmaker Clint Eastwood.

Spike is miffed because Clint failed to include African American actors in his Oscar-winning World War II films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima. Never mind that Letters, which assumes the Japanese point-of-view, is one of Hollywood’s few intelligent productions aimed at pointing up the ignorance in racism, to Spike it simply wasn’t the right race.

Spike’s energy would have been to better use were he to have complained about the timeworn drunken Indian stereotypes littered throughout Flags’ screenplay.

Clint explained that the black troops that did take part in the 1945 battle were assigned to munitions companies and had no part in the flag-raising moment that is the focus of Flags. “The story is Flags of Our Fathers,’the famous flag-raising picture, and they didn’t do that. If I go ahead and put an African-American actor in there, people’d go: ‘This guy’s lost his mind.’ I mean, it’s not accurate.” Referring to Lee, Clint added: “A guy like him should shut his face.”

Lee quickly responded, telling ABC News on Friday that Eastwood’s comments surprised him.

“First of all, the man is not my father and we’re not on a plantation either,” he said. Remember, telling someone to shut up is tantamount to endorsing slavery.

“He’s a great director,” Lee continued. “He makes his films, I make my films. The thing about it though, I didn’t personally attack him. And a comment like ‘a guy like that should shut his face’ — come on Clint, come on. He sounds like an angry old man right there.”

And you don’t listen well, do you aaaaaaasshole!

Spike Sharpton told AOL News, “If he wishes, I could assemble African-American men who fought at Iwo Jima and I’d like him to tell these guys that what they did was insignificant and they did not exist. I’m not making this up. I know history. I’m a student of history. And I know the history of Hollywood and its omission of the one million African-American men and women who contributed to World War II.”

Than why not make a movie about them, Spike? Oh, you did! And Miracle at St. Anna is currently in post-production due for US release in October? Looks like Lee’s way of starting the promotional bandwagon is to crap on two-year old films in order to make his upcoming gift look better.

As these pictures from The National Archives prove, Spike was certainly correct about their being African American soldiers on the beach at Iwo Jima. (According to the site, “over 2.5 million African-American men registered for the draft.”) Eastwood’s films never set out to prove that World War II was an all-white battle, nor were any of the characters intrinsic to his story black.

When asked how St. Anna will stack up against Saving Private Ryan, Lee said “Steven Spielberg’s a great filmmaker. I’ve always respected his work but this is totally different.” (Why isn’t Spike up in arms about the lack of African Americans in Schindler’s List? From what I’ve read, as far as Hitler was concerned, blacks were third in line behind Jews and gays.)

Student of history Lee dumps all over Clint and goes on to call the man that made The Color Purple “a great filmmaker.” Anyone want to buy my copy of Bamboozled?

“Ooooohh! What the f@#&’s wrong with you? Where do you get your balls big enough to say that to him? Are you out of your f@#&ing mind? He eats s%@# like you for breakfast. Now I want you to go over there and f@#&ing apologize to him, you hear what I’m saying? And personally I don’t give a f%$@ what color you are. if I ever catch you speaking out of line to Mr. Eastwood again, I’ll f@#&ing kill you myself, pure and simple.”

Links
Clint Eastwood photos

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