“Let me tell you the story of right hand, left hand. It’s the tale of good and evil”, says Radio Raheem to Mookie. Spike Lee adjusts cinematic language to show the audience deeper meaning within the context of his shots. He utilizes a film procedure called breaking the fourth wall. Breaking the fourth wall incorporates a cinematic style shot, that features three windows and a character’s fourth wall. The character looks directly into the camera and therefore the audience. It's a regular method used in film to get into a subject's headspace. “Viewing television follows the conventions established by live theater and film. The viewer actually is eavesdropping on characters who function within a 'three-walled' environment. The ‘fourth wall’ is a transparent one through which the audience voyeuristically looks'. The characters are not aware of the audience and, thus, make no direct statements to them. However, this convention has been broken by writers in different media. Meyerhold broke the fourth wall with some of his plays in the 1920s. He went so far as to extend the stage apron into the audience and to place actors from the play in the audience” (Davis and Auter, 165). It directly involves the audience in the events unfolding. Spike Lee employs breaking the fourth wall in many scenes in ‘Do the Right Thing’.
Lee uses camera angles to place the audience into Mookie's point of view. It's an excellent method for taking a character's perspective without breaking the scene. From that point, Radio Raheem dispatches into his monologue where he portrays the continuous battle between love and hate, one in which love ultimately wins through sheer force of power. The claims he makes in his rant, however, contradict his actions. Radio Raheem’s character design features a boombox that continuously blasts the song, ‘Fight the Power’, by Public Enemy. The song itself is a representation of the anger of African Americans. It calls for unification. The song urges African Americans to unite against the systematic racism they have been subjected to. Radio Raheem feels very strongly about institutionalized racism. Contemplate the concepts of love and hate and their meaning to Radio Raheem. This is where the brass knuckles of love and hate come into play.
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In the conflict with the Puerto Ricans to see whose boombox is louder, Raheem raises the volume with his left hand, the golden brass knuckle of hate. When he lowers the volume to greet Mookie, he uses the hand of love, and before he enters Sal’s Pizzeria, he raises it with the hand of hate. For Radio Raheem, love is representative of his relationship with most people of his own race while hate is reserved for those who are not black, those he does not love. Lee shows this as hypocritical among minorities who believe their race is superior rather than equal. Radio Raheem is more antagonistic in the film and Lee visually presents this using Dutch angles. The tilt of the camera can clue us in on a character’s emotional state.
Combined with POV fourth wall breaks we know the exact emotion a character is feeling, in Raheem’s case: anger. The conflicting ideals over Raheem’s speech and actions become more and more apparent. His battle between love and hate is a physical one and has the potential to manifest itself in violence. “If I love you, I love you. If I hate you. I hate you”.
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Spike Lee Breaks the Fourth Wall in ‘Do the Right Thing’.
(2022, December 15). Edubirdie. Retrieved December 22, 2024, from https://edubirdie.com/examples/spike-lees-using-breaking-the-fourth-wall-to-get-greater-meaning-out-of-his-shots-in-do-the-right-thing/
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2022 Dec 15 [cited 2024 Dec 22].
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