The Crazy And Controversial Career Of Lee Daniels

Lee Daniels has spent much of his short but prolific directorial career defending his flamboyant style against criticisms that he goes so far over-the-top that the top is no longer visible. Even while it’s impossible to deny that his films are those of a singular auteur’s voice, the irony is certainly not lost on the 53-year-old that his new film, which features his moniker right there in the title, is the least like a Lee Daniels movie yet.

Originally titled simply The Butler, its now expanded title of Lee Daniels’ The Butler is the result of legal wrangling. Daniels has admitted that the film, inspired by the true story of a long-serving White House butler that stars Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey, is the closest he’s come to working as a director for hire. It made me wonder whether his recognisable style had been blunted or if he’d simply learned how to adapt to a more audience-friendly story.

Beginning his career as a casting director on the classic Prince vehicle Purple Rain (1984), Lee Daniels first came to prominence producing Marc Forster’s Monster’s Ball (2001), the film that made history after star Halle Berry became the first African American to win a ‘Best Actress’ Academy Award. It told the story of a woman having an affair with a prison officer (Billy Bob Thornton) who was involved in the execution of her husband (Puff Daddy). Daniels would go on to produce The Woodsman (2004) with Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick about a rehabilitated paedophile, and Tennessee (2008), a threadbare road movie that nonetheless brought Mariah Carey to Daniels’ attention.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Macy Gray and Helen Mirren walk into a bar…

It wasn’t until he began directing that the concept of ‘a Lee Daniels film’ began taking shape. While his debut Shadowboxer (2005) is hardly a beacon of quality, it nonetheless signalled the then 45-year-old as a director with a unique point of view. Introducing audiences brave enough to bear it to his in-your-face style, confounding ensemble casts, and confronting take on sex and violence, Shadowboxer is a movie in which Mo’Nique and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play lovers and Dame Helen Mirren and Cuba Gooding Jr play incestuous assassins, and it also features a cracked-out Macy Gray, zebras, and Stephen Dorff’s erection (link NSFW, obviously).

“I need a nut. Nuts! Nuts! Where my nuts?”

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How Precious

Daniels’ next film, however, brought him success beyond anything his previous work could have suggested. Loved and hated in equal measure, Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire — itself the victim of legal fuss over its title — is a messy yet brilliant look at black youth in ’80s New York. Sporting less in common with other prominent African American directors like Spike Lee (Do The Right Thing, 1989), John Singleton (Boyz N The Hood, 1991) and F. Gary Gray (Set It Off, 1996) and instead demonstrating a kinship with the Grand Guignol theatrics of ‘60s hagsploitation titles like Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962), its star-making turn by Gabourey Sidibe (currently on American Horror Story: Coven as Queenie) made it well-known, but the terrifying Oscar-winning performance by Mo’Nique made it legendary.

His trademark oddball cast included Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, The View co-host Sherri Shepherd, and Paula Patton. Some of the film’s detractors suggested Daniels’ treatment of the harrowing material verged into camp, while others applauded its unique take on an all too common subject matter. For his efforts, Daniels was nominated for an Academy Award, the first openly gay director to do so and only the second African American director after Singleton for Boyz N The Hood.

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Trash or treasure?

Following Precious‘ success, Daniels assembled his most high-profile cast yet for the controversial The Paperboy (2012). Hyperbolic adjectives abound when describing what he inflicts upon audiences, most famously Nicole Kidman urinating on Zac Efron, but also Kidman’s telepathic blowjob with an imprisoned John Cusack, and a scene in which Matthew McConaughey is hog-tied and raped by hillbillies. Much like the rest of his career, however, these elements are merely window-dressing which allow Daniels to explore truly upsetting material.

Just like Precious featured stolen fried chicken and “fluorescent beige” to highlight its weightier issues, so too does The Paperboy use its heightened sexuality and lurid swamp-bound campiness to make its disturbing and often horrifically brutal racism all the more confronting. The film was widely mocked, called “unbelievably awful” and “ugly trash”, but I think it’s kind of amazing.

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Oprah’s back

Which brings us to his latest work, Lee Daniels’ The Butler, which is quite unlike what we’ve come to expect from a Daniels picture. If the material isn’t as crazy as his prior films, then the debate around its title certainly is. Less than two months out from its US release in August, Warner Bros ridiculously claimed the title infringed upon that of its 1916 short film, also titled The Butler. Despite sharing no similarities whatsoever — the events of Daniels’ film take place decades after that of Warner’s short — and Hollywood’s history of recycled movie titles, the filmmakers were forced to rename their work.

Ultimately it didn’t matter, as the film is already a US box office hit and widely predicted to be nominated in several categories for next year’s Academy Awards, including ‘Best Screenplay’ by Danny Strong (yes, Buffy The Vampire Slayer’s nerd king Johnathon). It’s hard to picture Oprah Winfrey not being nominated for her vivacious, edgy performance as a bored and boozing housewife; she’s exactly what the surprisingly conservative film needed to remain interesting throughout its parade of presidential cameos and civil rights greatest hits. Once again, Daniels has cast outlandishly — Mariah Carey, Robin Williams, and America’s Next Top Model Cycle 3 runner-up Yaya Alafia amongst them — and even if many of the actors playing presidents and first ladies look nothing like their real-life counterparts, it certainly makes for a fun time wondering who will pop up next (answer: Alan Rickman and a controversial Jane Fonda as the Reagans!).

Where does Lee Daniels go from here? He recently announced to Out Magazine that he wants to make a Mr and Mr Smith of sorts, a large-scale action film starring two male leads who are also lovers and he wants Alex Pettyfer to star because “He’s so hot, isn’t he? So hot. And so aware of his hotness in a way that’s so… I love him to death.” ‘Til then, we’ll always have Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron in his tighty-whiteys dancing in the rain from The Paperboy, because why not?

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Lee Daniels’ The Butler is now showing in cinemas nationally.

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Glenn Dunks is a freelance writer and film critic from Melbourne, and currently based in New York City. His work has been seen online (Onya Magazine, Quickflix), in print (The Big Issue, Metro Magazine, Intellect Books Ltd’s World Film Locations: Melbourne), as well as heard on Joy 94.9.