Posted by patrixo at 212.2.178.44 on October 16, 1999 at 01:08:22:
Kevin ,
You and I are almost the same age I believe . I was living in the Bronx in the seventies and remember the Son of Sam era with an instilled fear that was conditionally built into the six year old boy I was at the time . Assuming you were living somewhere in New Jersey at the time it would stand in your memory aswell , perhaps ?
I have just come home after seeing Summer of Sam at the Cork FIlM festival . I can't explain the type of numbness that has gripped my senses , 22 years since I took in that imagery for the first time . I know you are a Spike Lee fan , as you credited him in the end of Clerks , amongst others .
Does Spike Lees films grab you twice as much since he is possibily the truest storyteller to come out of New York ? There is always a double molten metal fabric that meshes Spike's works on a New York level and a genius film maker level . I felt Do the RIght THing was the greatest work of all time . But what I saw tonight , Summer of Sam , and how Spike took the tale of the pyscho postal worker and incorporated Reggie Jackson , saturday night fever , the early punk scene , qualudes and most of all the pelham parkway guidos . HE IS THE GREATEST FILM MAKER OF OUR TIME ! Can you imagine how much satitisfaction the man from Bed Stuy gets from creating the guido image and the black looting in the blackout . He played the film and shown the news like the way it was shown , his point is so strong if you want to look at the afro american motif . Yet it's like he said nothing at all . I feel like the Queen of England on the day she realises that her entire country has been built from the torture and evilness of her predecessors . I too feel extremely happy to be able to see Spike Lee's films as they go the deepest . How about you ?