Spike Lee’s ‘Essential Films’ List Will Start Fights
No John Candy movies? No Ratatouille? Get outta here.
Not too long ago, I met a friend-of-a-friend in New York who attended NYU film school and had Spike Lee as a lecturer. Needless to say, I instantly bombarded her with questions about the famous Do The Right Thing director:
– “Oh shit! Is he mean?”
– “No, he’s really helpful and friendly.”
– “Has he ever yelled at you when you didn’t finish your homework readings?”
– “No.”
– “Has he ever taken you to a Knicks game?”
– “No.”
As you can see, I learnt quite a bit about Spike Lee before my friend’s friend got bored of my endless questions and fled to the other side of the dining table. (Another one of her lecturers was awesome cinematic nutcase Todd Solondz, but that’s a whole other story.)
Over the weekend, we got another look at Spike’s teaching techniques, after he posted a document titled ‘Spike Lee’s Essential Film List’ on the Kickstarter page for his next film project (which Steven Soderbergh’s already contributed $10,000 to, happily scoring himself a dinner date and Knicks game with the filmmaker). It’s a list that he’s reportedly handed out to every NYU graduate film student for the past fifteen years.
“On this list is what I consider the greatest films ever made and stuff that’s essential that if you wanna be a filmmaker, you should see these films.” said Spike in an introductory video, before adding that the list’s essentially meant to spark debate. “Of course, there’s gonna be stuff that I left out.”
Anyway, this is the full list. As you may notice, there’s a distinct lack of women, cartoons and John Candy movies on it:
For some unexpected local pride, Aussie George Miller gets a shout-out with Mad Max (1979) and The Road Warrior (1981). But perhaps Spike’s most controversial additions are its most recent: Neil Blomkamp’s District 9 (2009), Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto (2006), Stephen Chow’s Kung Fu Hustle (2004), and the Brazilian ghetto epic City Of God, which, for some reason, Spike calls ‘City Of Gods’ (2002). Are these really the most “essential” films of our generation? Surely one of those Fellini movies could’ve made way for Ratatouille (2007), right?