analysis on Do the right thing!

I was thinking more about Do the right thing and I wanted to analyze it more so I will write more of my thoughts down. Radio Raheem was my favorite character in the movie so I will use him in my examples.

I really liked the camera angles used especially in the scenes with Raheem. Let us look at the scene with Raheem buying batteries from the Korean couple. When we see the couple on screen, we view them with an overhead shot signifying Raheem towering over them and them being the small ones. When we see Raheem, we see him through a low angle shot again showing him towering over them from their point of view. The same thing happened with his interactions with Sal.

Lets more look at the movie more from a “Mise en scene” perspective. I like the costumes used because it brought realism to the movie. They were supposed to be in the late 80’s/early 90’s and so what they war portrayed this. The very colorful clothing style, the haircut, and jewelry worn by Raheem just make him credible to my eye. His size obviously complemented his character so that was cool too.

In terms of acting, Radio Raheem’s performance was both stylized and naturalistic and he would switch from one style to another. Most of his acting was natural and in spike Lee’s case, there was probably some “method acting” as well. I say it was stylized because there were moments when he seemed he was fully aware he was acting as he would turn towards the camera and address the audience, his famous love versus hate monologue for example.

The prop used by Radio Raheem was a radio and it had instrumental and metaphorical significance in my eye. It was obviously used to blast music and if I had a radio like that I would seriously considering walking around my campus blasting out music. Not only was it just used for instrumental value, it was metaphorical because it represented his beliefs. The fact that he just blasted one song, “fight the power! Fight the power! Fight the power!” shows his belief in freedom of expression. When Sal breaks his radio, in a way Sal attacks his beliefs and that’s why Raheem goes crazy.

The color pattern of the movie I think was beautiful because there were scenes in which the whole frame would have a specific color. In the video I added to this blog, we can see the heat radiating off Raheem in the orange-ish frame which is beautiful. There is a lot of high key lighting that accentuated a lot of the movies objects.

In conclusion, I think Spike lee does a wonderful job with the directing and acting in the movie and I like what I saw. I will write down more notes when I have more to say.

here is the video which i found on youtube.com



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsFjlLXP9GU

p.s i really dont know how to make this a link so you might have to copy and paste. does anyone know how to make it a link?