Love/Hate in DO THE RIGHT THING
Mel posted about LOVE/HATE Knuckles and the Weight of Homage in I’m A Virgo.
So let us take a quick look at the iconic LOVE/HATE scene in Do The Right Thing (1989). (It is like 90secs and well worth watching).
We discussed this moment in Draft Zero Ep99 on Scene Questions as an example of a thematic scene. There are no pressing plot or character questions. We’re not actively wondering whether Mookie (Spike Lee) will be able to deliver his pizzas or whether he will learn to Do The Right Thing.
Instead, the scene is structured us to make us ask the question: “what is this scene really about?"
And to make that clear, the filmmakers do a simple yet effective camera move:
We rotate from a 2S profile (ish) into a front-on single of Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn). We see Mookie dart out of frame to make room for the camera, and Radio Raheem wait a beat for the camera to be in final position before he starts his monologue. They’re not trying to hide it from us. They want us to feel the shift.
The filmmakers could have cut from the 2S profile into the MS just fine but they chose not to BECAUSE they want us to know that Radio Raheem is addressing us - the audience! - and not Mookie.
This kind of fourth-wall breaking is throughout Do The Right Thing as an integral part of its overall visual strategy and is key (I think anyway) to why after some 34 years it still feels so incendiary.