← Cannonball with Wesley Morris
Loading summary
Transcript328 lines
- [00:01]
A
Hi, I'm Juliette from New York Times Games, and I'm here talking to fans about our games. You play New York Times Games? Yes, every day. There's this little tab down here called Friends, so you can add your friend. That feels new to me. It is.
- [00:13]
B
It's nice to have the social aspect.
- [00:15]
A
Oh, my God. And you have all the times. That's crazy, right?
- [00:17]
B
You can look at Spelling bee, wordle Connections.
- [00:21]
A
Oh, my God. Amazing. Love that I have to get the app. New York Times Games subscribers get full access to all our games and features. Subscribe now@nytimes.com games for a special offer. I'm Wesley Morris, and this is Cannonball. Today we're going from the highest to the lowest. I never think of Spike Lee as a summer movie filmmaker, but I'm also an idiot because I'm sitting here and it's occurring to me that this is actually a summer movie, man. It's been true more or less for 40 years. A lot of his movies have come out in the summer. I know, I was there. I saw them. His masterpiece, obviously, do the Right Thing, but also Mo Better Blues and Jungle Fever. One of my favorite Spike Lee movies is called Summer of Sam and it actually came out in. In the summer of 1999. Also Blackkklansman summer movie. And now we've got Highest, Lowest. That's highest to lowest. It hit theaters last week and it'll start streaming on Apple TV September 5th. And I don't know this movie, it feels like right now to me in some very strange and interesting ways. I have to warn you, there's no way to talk about how right now it actually is without laying out the whole plot. So that is what I'm going to do. The movie loosely, a remake of Akira Kurosawa film from 1963 called High and Low. It's a suspense classic. It is just really good filmmaking. And that movie was based on an Ed McBain novel called King's Ransom. This one, Spike Lee's movie. Highest to lowest. It reunites Spike with Denzel Washington, I think for the fifth time. Denzel plays David King, a record executive who's got to decide whether to spend all his capital to stop his label from being eaten by some bigger fish or pay the ransom to the dude who kidnapped the son of his right hand man, who's played by Jeffrey Wright. You're not going to believe who the kidnapper turns out to be. We're going to tell you, but you're still not going to believe it. Like all Spike Lee Joints. This one's doing the most. It's deeply New York, but it's also seriously thinking about what? Black people at the top. Oh, black people at the bottom. If you're Denzel's character, what is the right thing to do here? I watched this movie and I thought, you know, who's probably got a lot of feelings about first how New York it is and then about the politics of his blackness? Vincent Cunningham. Vincent's one of our finest critics of theater, sports, tv, TV ads, of life as of last year. He's also a novelist of a great book called Great Expectations. It's out now. Help yourself, please. He's also the co host of the podcast Critics at Large, the New Yorker joint, where Vincent's also a staff writer. Vincent. Hi.
- [03:34]
B
Hey.
- [03:35]
A
Welcome to Cannonball.
- [03:36]
B
Thank you for that. That was beautiful.
- [03:38]
A
You're welcome. It's true. I mean, there are no lies here. I don't know. I was sitting there and I was like, people I could talk to about this. But I want to know what Vincent thinks. And I mean, how did this movie make you feel? And where would you situate it in your Spike Lee movie feelings?
- [03:57]
B
First of all, it made me feel rare joy. It's classic Spike Lee. Too much is happening.
- [04:02]
A
Too much.
- [04:03]
B
It was so too much in its Spike leanness. And so it's just a great place to think about Spike Lee, but also to enjoy another late stage great Denzel Washington.
- [04:15]
A
How does this man do it? Okay, so I just want to set this up a little bit, please. The opening shot of this thing is a panoramic. I don't know, either copter shot or drone shot. It's 20, 25. Why. Why pay the money for a chopper when you can get a drone? But it's very well done.
- [04:35]
B
Yes.
- [04:36]
A
The camera is coming from one end of Brooklyn to another end. You're winding up in Dumbo.
- [04:44]
B
Yeah.
- [04:45]
A
Which is the place where all the tourists go to take the. Between the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge on the ground. But Denzel Washington's character, David King, lives with his wife and son in this new building, 30 Front street, which is basically a bunch. I don't even. How would we describe this?
- [05:05]
B
It's a Jenga tower of balconies.
- [05:07]
A
It is basically a bunch of balconies just dropped on top of each other. That's a great description. And the camera just sort of zooms right on into the top floor where Denzel lives. He is highest at this moment.
- [05:21]
B
Another thing about this scene is, again, this is Spike Lee maximalism as you're getting this panorama of the city and of the newly glittery Brooklyn. It's going, oh, what a beautiful morning. It's ridiculous.
- [05:35]
A
The Norm Lewis is singing, like, the opening number from Oklahoma.
- [05:40]
B
It's like, if you want to know that this guy has a good life, everything's going my way. There are many different ways to find that out. You can hear it, you can see it. If you could smell it, Spike Lee would make you smell it. Every sense is employed in. Just to tell you this is a guy literally and figuratively on top of the world.
- [06:02]
A
Yes. And Denzel looks great.
- [06:05]
B
Sort of the point of the movie is that he looks great.
- [06:08]
A
He has been Beijinged within an inch of his life.
- [06:10]
B
Denzel, I've seen him do everything. I've never seen him have this much hairline.
- [06:14]
A
Yes.
- [06:15]
B
My God, what a hairline.
- [06:16]
A
And it is ebony.
- [06:18]
B
I Black as night.
- [06:21]
A
I mean, you could. It's the waves from moonlight, right? The waves from the end of moonlight are on his head.
- [06:28]
B
That's right.
- [06:28]
A
And they are. They are so black, they are blue.
- [06:31]
B
And the hairline was made with a protractor. Can I talk about a right angle?
- [06:34]
A
LeBron James is studying this hairline.
- [06:37]
B
I'm telling you, whoever did it, shout out to you the magic of cinema.
- [06:43]
A
But basically, we are watching a man. We are meant to take in the scope of the apartment, which is. It's enormous. And were meant to sort of savor the art direction, the fruit bowls, the Basquiat on the wall, and Kehinde Wiley.
- [07:01]
B
And every other black painter.
- [07:04]
A
There's a giant portrait of Toni Morrison. I don't know. I mean, parenthetically, could you live in this apartment? I mean, you could probably.
- [07:12]
B
Okay, I can't live on a. First of all, any place that has a balcony that high, if it's gonna be that high, I can't have a balcony.
- [07:18]
A
Fair. Fair.
- [07:20]
B
I can't live like that.
- [07:21]
A
But it's also worth getting into the idea that this is, as I said, it's based on a Kurosawa movie taken from epic Bane novel. Did you see. Have you seen the Kurosawa movie?
- [07:33]
B
I had seen it in college and I watched it again almost directly after seeing Highest to Lowest, because I too, wanted to see kind of what are the similarities, but also what are the differing priorities.
- [07:45]
A
I also watched it again. I hadn't seen that movie since I was in college. And we should just set up. Yes, exactly. What the Akira Kurosawa movie and the Spike Lee movie have in common. They're basically both about two Businessmen who are about to make a big, expensive business deal who realize that their son.
- [08:08]
B
Is kidnapped, except, oops, it's the son, actually, of their employee.
- [08:14]
A
Right.
- [08:15]
B
And they're both at moments of maximum financial sort of precarity. They've leveraged all their money to make. To try to, like, do a corporate maneuver. And paying the ransom for this kid, who is, turns out, not theirs, will require them to put all of this corporate maneuvering in jeopardy. So it becomes kind of a morality play in both cases.
- [08:35]
A
What do I do? Do I make this deal or do I make this other deal to get this kid back?
- [08:41]
B
Yeah.
- [08:41]
A
In the Kurosawa movie, we're talking about, like, a guy who works for a big shoe company and he runs one of the big factories that makes the shoes.
- [08:49]
B
Shoe magnate.
- [08:50]
A
He wants to take over the entire company. Denzel is record executive. Wait, who do you think Denzel is here?
- [08:59]
B
Well, unfortunately, he's sort of. He's a conglomerate.
- [09:02]
A
Right.
- [09:02]
B
I mean, he's Sean Combs and Barry Gordy.
- [09:05]
A
Right. He's Walt. He's Puffy. Is he Clarence Avant?
- [09:09]
B
He might be.
- [09:09]
A
I mean, there's just so many. Is he L. A Reid?
- [09:12]
B
He's all.
- [09:13]
A
But. I mean, he's like a composite. But the puffiness. I think that Puffy is the person who stands out as being the most likely culprit.
- [09:21]
B
Part of the music, but also on the production side and also the business genius hitting all of the sort of zones of production.
- [09:29]
A
Yes.
- [09:30]
B
You know, he's made his fortune by building this company. And the question is, does he sell it out or does he, you know, take it under his own control, Truly. And bring it back to its roots?
- [09:40]
A
Right. The structure of the two movies are the same. They decide, you know, the protagonist decides that he is going to pay the ransom.
- [09:49]
B
Do the right thing.
- [09:50]
A
Yes.
- [09:51]
B
Ha, ha. Yes.
- [09:54]
A
Decides he's gonna do the right thing.
- [09:56]
B
In the Kurosawa film Mifune, basically, like, you could just have written on his face the anguish of the decision. And then one day he just comes out and says, I have decided. I will pay the ransom. Blah, blah, blah.
- [10:05]
A
I'm a good Japanese man. I know what to do.
- [10:07]
B
There you go. Denzel can't do this. He has to go through the dark night of the soul.
- [10:12]
A
Yes. Does he want to buy his record label back from being merged with some much larger conglomeration, or is he gonna use all that money? Basically, we're told all the money he has, all the capital he has, he's gonna mortgage that apartment and use whatever savings they have to do this to.
- [10:35]
B
Buy the record company that is. There's already been a sale made. The ink is almost dry. They're gonna sell the record company to some. It sounds like larger conglomerate.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah.
- [10:45]
B
And he wants to actually take it over so he can get back to basics and like, again, make authentic real music.
- [10:53]
A
Real music.
- [10:54]
B
So, like, even though he's the rich guy, his aesthetics, at least to himself, are, I wanna get back to the root of, you know, whatever the soul is that black music comes from, I want to reclaim that.
- [11:06]
A
That is a great way to set up what I think is the second wildest scene in the movie, maybe the third wildest scene.
- [11:15]
B
I mean, there's so many wild scenes.
- [11:16]
A
Denzel is performing the struggle over whether or not to pay this ransom.
- [11:23]
B
That's right.
- [11:24]
A
He's sitting in his office. That's right. And he's just like looking around at the photographs.
- [11:31]
B
They're photographs, one of which is of a young Denzel Washington, which has been sort of put on the COVID of. I'm pretty sure Rolling Stone magazine did that.
- [11:41]
A
Really?
- [11:42]
B
Wow, that was crazy.
- [11:43]
A
Oh, my God. Talk about what you. You forget because it's looking good right now. But you get reminded of what 1989 Denzel looked like smoldering that era of Denzel. Ugh. So anyway, there's a mocked up Rolling.
- [11:59]
B
Stone, and he's looking around at these photographs of basically heroes of the black past. And he's looking around making outward, like audible to us. Appeals to like Aretha, what would you do? Whoever, you know.
- [12:11]
A
And there's, you know, classic Spike Lee. When someone is addressed, you get a full on close up of the thing of the object person, whatever, doesn't matter what it is. He is gonna give you a beautiful close up of it.
- [12:23]
B
That's right. And a photograph of his former self. And this is where the movie.
- [12:27]
A
And makes the two of them talk to each other.
- [12:29]
B
That's right. And so it is really a. An appeal to the. You mentioned the sort of joint filmography of both of these men. You can't miss that Denzel slams the desk at one point, just like Denzel, as Malcolm X once did.
- [12:42]
A
Yes. He gives you that stutter edit where he does it once and then he immediately does it again.
- [12:47]
B
That's right. Yeah. It's an appeal to what I think is the similarity. If you want to read this film autobiographically interesting. David King might also be a stand in for Spike Lee in that. Okay, who's more on top of the. Who goes to every Knicks game? The Knicks Just went to the Eastern Conference finals in the NBA playoffs, and Spike's there at courtside. Nobody's got a better life than ever.
- [13:15]
A
He did miss one important game. Cause he was doing this movie in Cannes. He was like pitching this movie in Cannes.
- [13:22]
B
And Spike Lee comes from a black, you know, certainly artistic milieu. His father's a jazz musician, but. But a middle class milieu.
- [13:32]
A
In Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
- [13:33]
B
In Fort Greene, Brooklyn. And is now the kind of guy who's either on the sidelines at Madison Square Garden or in Martha's Vineyard. Right. And I do think this movie is about what does he owe to black people broadly, but to the black masses perhaps particularly? It's like everything that I've done, these representations that I've helped bring into being, including Denzel Washington as Malcolm X. Right. What does it mean? What does it add up to in terms of my debt? Have I paid it by the spectacle of my own success? Or is there something more that I owe? And you see David King going through this, snapping his head, smacking the desk, talking to himself. And he can't make the right decision until he has had this discourse with the black host of witnesses that have preceded him.
- [14:22]
A
James, what should I do? Closeup of James Brown.
- [14:26]
B
That's right.
- [14:27]
A
What do I do? Crossed up a Stevie Wonder. Aretha, talk to me, talk to me. What should I do? And then it just. I mean, for shits and giggles, Jimmy, tell me, what should my black soul do? And you get a shot of Jimi Hendrix.
- [14:44]
B
Yeah.
- [14:44]
A
It is extraordinarily excessive. And I love that you are connecting this to Spike, Spike Lee and his idea of himself and these questions about what he's achieved at this point. Cause, like, this is a kind of legacy question. And I just. We should say that the camera for this scene is like up in the ceiling.
- [15:05]
B
Yeah.
- [15:06]
A
These are not close ups of Denzel. We're kind of like surveilling this moment. This is a private moment that we might not be meant to see.
- [15:15]
B
Yeah. This is the CCTV feed of the office here.
- [15:18]
A
Right. And I just really like the distance from which it is happening. It is almost like God watching, but also, you know, an audience bearing witness to the inner struggles of an elite black man, which are, of course, interrupted by the police. And when he comes in, he has a total masculinity moment where he's just like. Yeah, I was. I don't know, just like summer cold. Summer cold. What you gonna do? Summer cold.
- [15:43]
B
Meanwhile, he's weeping to his ancestors or whatever. Yeah.
- [15:46]
A
Like, just crying for Our people to his people. I really think this moment. I wish we could have watched it together because I laughed so much I was howling. Yeah. It's ridiculous. But it is also kind of. It is moving in that you understand the work it is meant to do.
- [16:07]
B
Yeah. It really sets up the rest of the movie in this beautiful way. It's not incidental. It's so important that it's music. And therefore, it's so important that he's making these appeals to Jimi Hendrix, to James Brown. His notion of black authenticity and his notions of where the soul of the people is kind of kept is different from later on, we're gonna get into, like, the world of hip hop. Right. And somehow this has huge stakes.
- [16:38]
A
I think what you've identified is like, a classic Spike Lee tension that has really, really, really, really, really come to sit at the soul of this movie.
- [16:51]
B
Yeah.
- [16:52]
A
And, I mean, the Jeffrey Wright character is there as a signifier of some kind of reminder to the Denzel Washington character of where he's come from. Jeffrey Wright character went to prison.
- [17:05]
B
Yes.
- [17:06]
A
We don't know why.
- [17:07]
B
We don't know.
- [17:07]
A
We don't know. I mean, there's a world in which. I mean, nobody said this, but, like, was it for Denzel? Do you know what I mean?
- [17:14]
B
Like, who could have been.
- [17:16]
A
This is a guy who is. He's a practicing Muslim, also a devoted friend. And he is experiencing this person. He's devoted a lot of his time and life to struggle about whether or not to, like, do him, like, in some ways, an ultimate favor.
- [17:36]
B
Right.
- [17:37]
A
But then the other nugget of the tension here is between Denzel Washington's character, the record executive, and the kidnapper.
- [17:45]
B
Yes.
- [17:46]
A
Who? We don't know. Did you think for a little while that it was Jeffrey Wright? Did Jeffrey Wright was involved in the kidnapping?
- [17:53]
B
Unfortunately, I did know the cast of this movie, so I knew who at least the main kidnapper, I didn't know was. You didn't know that that was gonna be him?
- [18:01]
A
I didn't know. I didn't know anything.
- [18:03]
B
It turns out, of course, that he is not the kidnapper. And I think we can continue to prolong the reveal.
- [18:09]
A
Let me. I wanna talk about the scene.
- [18:11]
B
Okay.
- [18:11]
A
Because I will set it up to just say we know at about, like, an hour in. We know. We know a lot of things. We know that it's Jeffrey Wright's son, not Trey, Denzel Washington's son, who comes back home and is like, dad, you know, you claim to be of the people, but you. You're not gonna help get Kyle away from these kidnappers. This is insane.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah.
- [18:37]
A
I mean, Denzel Washington gets called all kinds of, like, bitch ass, N word, pussy ass, N word. I've never heard anybody, even the kkk, talk to Denzel Washington as bad as the black people in this movie.
- [18:54]
B
It's true. But you need that. There is, like, a sort of racial shaming. It's like, I've looked up to you, so what you gonna do?
- [19:04]
A
So I will, yada, yada, yada. Us to a moment where Denzel has done this transfer. There is still 45 minutes left to go. In this movie, Jeffrey Wright gets his son back. The son is recovering in the hospital, and the police are shaking him down. Like, do you remember anything? Do you know anything? Does anything stand out? And the son is like, oh. Oh, my God.
- [19:28]
B
I don't know.
- [19:30]
A
I feel like I don't. I don't. I mean, I think there was, like. There was a song, I don't know. And I can still. I can still kind of remember. It was like, back, back, back to the trunk. From the trunk. From the trunk to the back. Yeah, I think that's what it was. I can remember. I can still hear it. And so Denzel is, like, out one day listening to a playlist that his son made. Finally, finally. Parenthetically, his son has been pushing on him all these artists all this time. Like, dad, you should look at this person.
- [20:12]
B
And with the insistence that only an entitled Nepo baby could have, he's like, I got the next big thing for you, dad. And he wants him to take him seriously.
- [20:20]
A
Yes. And one of the songs on the playlist, Back out the Trunk. He can wait. What?
- [20:28]
B
Back out the trunk. From the front to the back.
- [20:31]
A
Well, I mean, back to the front.
- [20:32]
B
Back out the Trunk.
- [20:33]
A
From Front to the back blasts in to poor Kyle's hospital room and is like, is this it? Is this the song? And Kyle's like, that's it.
- [20:58]
B
From the front to the back.
- [21:02]
A
So we're going to have a break right now, and when we come back, I think we can talk about the rest of this insanity. Yeah, I can't.
- [21:11]
B
I can't wait.
- [21:11]
A
Including who the kidnapper is. Don't just imagine a better future. Start investing in one with betterment. Whether it's saving for today or building wealth for tomorrow. We help people in small businesses put their money to work. We automate to make saving simpler. We optimize to make investing smarter. We build innovative technology backed by financial experts. For anyone who's ever said, I think I can do better. So be invested in yourself. Be invested in your business. Be invested in better with betterment. Get started@betterment.com investing involves risk performance not guaranteed. The New York Times app has all this stuff that you may not have seen. I can immediately navigate to something that matches what I'm feeling. The way the tabs are at the top with all of the different sections, it's just easier to navigate that way.
- [22:09]
B
There is something for everyone.
- [22:11]
A
Those personalized page, the YouTube, that one's my favorite. I can also save my articles easily in this area right under the byline. It says click here if you'd like.
- [22:20]
B
To listen to this article.
- [22:21]
A
I like that the cooking tab on top is really easily accessible. So if I'm on my way home and I'm just thinking, oh, what am I gonna make for dinner? I'll just quickly go on to cooking and say, oh, I've got this in my pantry. I'm gonna try out some of these.
- [22:34]
B
Recipes I see in here.
- [22:35]
A
I go to games, always doing the mini, doing the wordle. I loved how much content it exposed me to things that I never would have thought to turn to a news app for. This app is essential. The New York Times app. All of the times, all in one place. Download it now@nytimes.com app okay, we're back. When we left, we were talking about revealing who this kidnapper is in the highest to lowest.
- [23:10]
B
Please reveal it.
- [23:12]
A
I want to say before we do it, I will prolong the suspense. I mean, y' all probably already know anyway, but I just want to. I want to prolong the suspense in the world of this conversation just to say that Denzel Washington, because the cops are like, they are not taking his clue seriously. So Denzel and Jeffrey just hook up, and they're like, you know what? We got this. We can go find this kidnapper. Let's go get him.
- [23:38]
B
Yeah.
- [23:39]
A
And it really is one of the most exciting things that happens in this movie. Like the idea that Jeffrey Wright and Denzel are just gonna be vigilantes.
- [23:50]
B
Yeah.
- [23:50]
A
They go off on this redemption ride to what song do you remember what they would spike with? What? The needle drop on that trip is the big payback.
- [24:03]
B
I mean, and they are just jamming.
- [24:05]
A
They're like, Denzel is shadow boxing in the car. Like Jeffrey Rice.
- [24:11]
B
Jeffrey Rice takes out a gun, and he's like, insurance. That's Jake from Statevault. They're making jokes. They are. It's. It's utterly insane.
- [24:23]
A
And it's.
- [24:24]
B
And they're Dead ass. Serious. They're gonna. They're gonna get this money back by themselves.
- [24:30]
A
It is I, Spike Lee. I don't. We don't have a word for what this is. I mean, I guess we don't really have a word for what black too much ness is. I mean, we have all kinds of words, right? Like extra. Too much. Went too far. Did the. I mean, but I really want. I mean, because camp isn't quite it, like black camp doesn't satisfy me.
- [25:02]
B
No, it's more than that.
- [25:03]
A
It's more than that where, like, in the world of a black work of art or culture, you are getting so much more than you need. It's camp adjacent, but it's black.
- [25:19]
B
What I kept thinking about was it's almost classically expressionistic.
- [25:23]
A
Yes.
- [25:24]
B
It's trying to put emotional states in their full, vivid color.
- [25:27]
A
But it's also in this scene, it's like two boys. It's just such a. Do you understand how high the stakes are right now? One of y' all could die, if not both of you. Cause y' all are going to boogie down. To what, like, show pieces to each other?
- [25:46]
B
To what is the question. They don't ever say, we're gonna kill this motherfucker. I'm gonna show him this gun and he's gonna give him.
- [25:53]
A
What is shadowboxing really gonna accomplish?
- [25:57]
B
They just want a confrontation. It's incredible.
- [26:02]
A
But I think it's such an amazing moment because it's not just that. Denzel and Jeffrey Wright pull up to this Bronx studio where the kidnapper is currently recording at 2am after stopping by the kidnapper's girlfriend's house, where she's like, oh, he loves you so much. He named our son. And I let him name our son David or King, after you. After you.
- [26:36]
B
Yeah, he loves you.
- [26:37]
A
She has no idea, by the way, what's going on.
- [26:39]
B
He keeps talking about how one day he's gonna meet you and y' all are gonna make music together, and that's gonna be that.
- [26:44]
A
Dreams are gonna come true. And Denzel gets in the studio. He sits at the control board. Now, remember, this is a world class, you know, billion dollar producer at this point, like reams of hits. And we can see in the studio at the microphone is none other than Vincent. Just say it.
- [27:06]
B
It's A$AP Rocky. It's A$AP Rocky. And he's so in the zone that he doesn't even know that behind the glass is the man after whom he has named his only child.
- [27:18]
A
What proceeds is truly this is not one of the great Spike Lee movies, but this is one of the great Spike Lee sequences in a movie. One of the great Spike Lee passages in a Spike Lee movie. This one is up there because basically A$AP Rocky is laying down a track, and Dezel is like. He announces himself by pressing the button, and now he is audible in the studio, and he's like, you know what? You can make this song better.
- [27:58]
B
Right.
- [27:58]
A
You might want to consider just doing a little ad libbing and, like, layering. Just layering the vocal a little bit.
- [28:07]
B
It sounds kind of like an argument in favor of more musicality, which is such a black boomer request of rap.
- [28:15]
A
Yep.
- [28:16]
B
Where's the melody? What's the tune, brother? Yeah. Except Roxy's like, what the. What?
- [28:23]
A
I mean. And so now A$AP Rocky knows that the person whose son he tried to steal and, you know, got this $17.5 million in Swiss. Swiss francs from. Is now sitting in the studio making his dream come true. This is the thing he wanted to happen.
- [28:44]
B
This is it.
- [28:46]
A
10 years ago.
- [28:47]
B
Yeah.
- [28:47]
A
But it never did, but now.
- [28:50]
B
And all he had to do was mistakenly kidnap somebody else's son, and here we are.
- [28:57]
A
But the great thing about this scene is the Denzel Washington character is actually trying to produce this record.
- [29:07]
B
Yeah.
- [29:08]
A
How Denzel and A$AP communicate to each other is basically in verse.
- [29:14]
B
Yes.
- [29:15]
A
They are rapping to each other, both about what needs to happen for this song to be better, but also for what led us to this point. Right, right. Like how I got to be on one side of the glass and you got to be on the other side.
- [29:32]
B
Of the glass, which. Okay, so now let's talk again about this. Whatever quality we're talking about, which is, like, this extraness, this is happening. It's on the one hand, the corniest thing that's ever happened in the history of cinema. Right. He's like, show me where my money at. Yeah.
- [29:48]
A
He's like, interpolating Nas at some point.
- [29:50]
B
It's incredible, but it also reminded me. And now go back to the dark night of the Soul in the office.
- [29:57]
A
The scene in the office with him pleading to Stevie and Aretha and Jimmy.
- [30:00]
B
To help and think of that as soliloquy. And go back. This is like. I'm like, oh, wait, is Spike doing Shakespeare?
- [30:08]
A
Yes, 100%.
- [30:09]
B
All of a sudden, it's rhyming couplets. It's collaborative language, but also a confrontation. And again, it's an outward splattering of emotional states that can only be finally consummated. By a clash.
- [30:23]
A
Yes.
- [30:24]
B
And it's like this is high classicism at the same time as it's really class clashing. That's right.
- [30:30]
A
But this goes on for like five minutes.
- [30:33]
B
Every time you think you're, like, uncomfortable with the scene and you're like, they're gonna cut. We're gonna cut to the police, please. They're like, no, no, no. I got 16 more bars for you.
- [30:44]
A
But I really love this sequence because you are right, it is the. What is the line from oh, what a beautiful Day that opens the movie? It's like the corn is piled as high.
- [30:56]
B
High in the meadow.
- [30:57]
A
Like the corn is like flooding the studio right now. But it also is really getting it at the sort of moral tensions are here between who made it and who didn't make it. Because the point here is that the kidnapping happens to make a point to David King. That he had a chance to sign this kid.
- [31:23]
B
You could have listened to that playlist months ago.
- [31:26]
A
Yep. And he could have listened to that and signed him. This would never have happened. But instead, here we are. I feel like this opens the movie up into this really new, strange territory where a black tastemaking gatekeeper and a young upstart who, in the world of the movie, feels he deserves more than he's been given. And I'm curious what you think is happening here in this exchange.
- [32:01]
B
Well, it's so interesting in both directions. Think about it from the perspective of a young felon. Asap.
- [32:07]
A
Rocky, did we even mention that his name is Young Felon?
- [32:10]
B
So sorry. He has to be Young Felon.
- [32:13]
A
It could only be Y, U, N, G, F, E, L, O, N. That's right. I mean, what are we doing?
- [32:20]
B
Unreal.
- [32:21]
A
It has to be Young Felon in the world of this movie.
- [32:25]
B
The fact that he obsesses over. Right. And lionizes this figure before he becomes sort of alienated against him and has to, you know, he gets radicalized and has to do this kidnapping. He's following a pattern that we see all the time. Part of the structure of hip hop has been especially into its maturity as you go into, like the late 90s, into the 2000s. Young kids without much social capital or actual capital looking at and rooting on the mostly financial exploits of people who they still identify with. Jay Z's from where I'm from. But he's also now a billionaire. You name it, now he's a billionaire. We mentioned Puffy. Same trajectory that the class Ascension, the acquisition of capital is almost as much the locus of fanhood as the Music itself. And so that's really interesting that somebody's finally had enough of that. That Young Felon's like, no, I watched you and I looked up to you and I hoped I could be like you. But something about that cracked on some level. It's like, it's got shades of Luigi Mangoni. It's like all of a sudden the world is not working for me and I'm pissed off about it and I'm going to burst through the veneer. I'm gonna burst through the sort of fellow feeling I'm supposed to have with you and illustrate our differences.
- [33:58]
A
Well, I think that this is about how you didn't pull me up with you. And I'm assuming if Young Felon is such a fan of David King, he can see what this label's priorities are. Like, he can see that, like, it might be forsaking him.
- [34:23]
B
Yeah.
- [34:23]
A
You know, the studio confrontation between David King and Young Felon is just. That's the first one. What happens after that is Young Felon takes his plea deal. He gets 25 years, and David King is like, that's not enough. Yeah, but we see this whole time, the public is basically on Young Felon's side. They are outside the courthouse. They are the ones who are like, you know, free Young Felon are guys being done dirty. But then before they actually do meet again, we get the thing I think we were waiting for, which is officially or unofficially, who can say? It's a music video for Trunks, which is basically the back to the front song that we've been talking about.
- [35:14]
B
Some young ladies shaking their asses behind.
- [35:17]
A
Him, a twerkathon happening all around him.
- [35:19]
B
Yeah.
- [35:20]
A
And, you know, we can see while this is happening that Denzel is watching this music video basically, and he is making just like. I mean, Vincent, you will have to like, hold your tummy when I say it. But he's making Cliff Huxtable faces, right? He is making faces to me, that are really Cosby esque.
- [35:43]
B
I hadn't thought about it like that, but so true is like.
- [35:49]
A
Like, what is. This isn't jazz. And then he gets this request from Young Felon to come see him in prison. And David King goes. And they're talking to each other through the glass, just like they did in the studio. Through that glass, right. And Young Felon is like, hey, listen, you and me, we can have a real good thing going. I can make music for you. People will pay attention if we hook up. And Denzel's like, I can't do that. You Messed up.
- [36:22]
B
Yeah.
- [36:23]
A
And I just. There is something about the choice that's being made here that feels both very. This is the most conservative situation Spike Lee has put himself in in a movie. Right. This feels like an argument for something. And I'm really curious what you think about the way generational ideas function in Spike Lee. Older people and younger people. It's mostly men talking about older black men and young black men. This has been going on undercover in a lot of his movies. His movies have really been about mentorship and tutelage. What a young black man can learn from an older, older black man. Classically Mookie, end the mayor and do the right thing. Come on. What? What?
- [37:18]
B
Always do the right thing. That's it. That's it.
- [37:21]
A
I got it. I'm gone.
- [37:22]
B
In the Five Bloods, there's Delroy Lindo and. And I believe his son in that movie.
- [37:28]
A
Yep, yep.
- [37:28]
B
See you just a little jive ass gangster now, huh? After everything you put me through, I say you get in a basement bargain. I'm grateful.
- [37:38]
A
Get on the Bus is exclusively about generational tension. Let there be a lesson to you.
- [37:44]
B
Young blood, work hard, graduate from school, white man can't hold you. I don't care what anybody say, you.
- [37:51]
A
Get your education right. You know, and what it means for these older guys to be going to the Million Man March along with these, the old heads and the kids.
- [38:01]
B
Yeah.
- [38:02]
A
In those films, there really is. There's both sides. Right. There are two sides in this fight. But one thing that is not present in that education system is prison. Right. That lesson is not happening between a free man and a convicted felon who goes by young felon. His nom de rapp is young felon. And I.
- [38:32]
B
Has anybody ever said nom de rapp before? I hope that that's a coinage. And I'm glad it was you.
- [38:39]
A
Let's go with it. I did not feel good about that. I don't know. What are you thinking?
- [38:46]
B
Well, one of the real world corollaries is that this year, A$AP Rocky, who on the one hand is where the billionaire Rihanna talk about spanning experience. And on the other hand, he had a trial for a gun possession, felony assault, gun charge, whatever it was. That was based on a guy that he knew that was a friend from his sort of A dollar AP Mob days. And their relationship fell apart and there was a confrontation and A$AP Rocky was totally exonerated. He's not guilty. But another real world corollary is someone who shows the sort of permeability the Kind of the quick departures that happen within the sort of black class society that these things, especially if you're coming from a certain place, are never quite as far away from, one might think. So that was certainly part of the sort of biographical underpinning that I was thinking about. There is, like, an observation that is based largely not in statistics, but in representations, let's say.
- [39:58]
A
Right.
- [39:59]
B
There are any number of young drill rappers. Bobby Shmurda, a rapper from Brooklyn, New York, just got back home. There's a pattern, a quickening pattern of these young entertainers bringing street stuff into their music and getting caught based on their lyrics and going to. So there is. So whatever. This is a spectacle, this is more a mirage than a statement of what is the state of black America. But it is still there. And someone like Spike Lee, whose job has been to manufacture representations of black life, therefore has to reckon with it. What is this image? And is it one that I'm comfortable with?
- [40:45]
A
But this, to me, is connected to this, to the way I think he has been perceiving a class of young black men as problems to be lectured to, put away. It's rare that he even has these people in his movies. And so it's telling to me that they've shown up here. And, you know, there is real class envy. There is a real sense of neglect operating here that the movie isn't exploring, but it's immediately pathologizing and punishing. And, I don't know, it just kind of bums me out.
- [41:26]
B
Yeah. I'm less bummed out by it. While agreeing with your analysis of it and what it sort of all quote, unquote means. It's weird because on the one hand, there is a sort of. You mentioned Cosby, and there is a sort of pound cake speech texture.
- [41:46]
A
You said it before I did. I was wondering if you were gonna take the bait, but you took it.
- [41:50]
B
Oh, I mean, let's keep fishing. Yes.
- [41:53]
A
We should say that the speech is essentially, I will boil it all the way down to the boys. Boys, pull up your pants.
- [42:01]
B
These are people going around stealing Coca Cola.
- [42:05]
A
People getting shot in the back of.
- [42:07]
B
The head over a piece of pound cake. And then we all run out and we're outraged.
- [42:13]
A
Oh, the cops shouldn't have shot him.
- [42:15]
B
The hell was he doing with the.
- [42:17]
A
Pound cake in his hand?
- [42:19]
B
Yes, It's, I think, the classic expression of sort of the negative side of what we call respectability politics.
- [42:27]
A
Yes.
- [42:27]
B
But I do admire Spike for using the tools that he has to explore this uncomfortable tension, even if it Includes an unavoidable misdiagnosis for somebody who's been famous and wealthy for as long as many of us can remember. Right.
- [42:50]
A
You mean Spike?
- [42:51]
B
Well, I'm talking about Spike, but also, again, for me, in this movie, Spike very much is David King, right?
- [42:56]
A
Yes.
- [42:57]
B
Somebody who announces often his closeness to the mass of black people, but is also materially separate and has to deal with that. Yes.
- [43:08]
A
I mean, the tough thing here is this guy did kidnap somebody and insist on a bunch of money.
- [43:16]
B
Yes.
- [43:17]
A
But I think there's the relish that the Denzel Washington character feels right. It isn't like, hey, I want to help you, I want to nurture you. I'm really not happy about what happened. But listen, waiting for you on the other side of this sentence when you were 60 years old is a record contract.
- [43:42]
B
We got you, man.
- [43:44]
A
This is not the choice that he makes. He's the one who pulls the bodega gate, so to speak, down on a dollar AP Rocky. And we get a last sequence of this movie which might be just one of the worst endings to a Spike Lee movie. I don't know if it's ever. Because, you know, the man likes to do something crazy at the end. Of all his movies, this one, the Wife, the not kidnapped son and David.
- [44:17]
B
King, they're back high up. They're back up in the sky.
- [44:21]
A
They're on top.
- [44:22]
B
It's another beautiful morning.
- [44:23]
A
And they have invited a guest, special guest. Because earlier in the movie we heard Trey say to David, yo, dad, gotta.
- [44:31]
B
Listen to this music.
- [44:32]
A
Gotta listen to this music, dad. I'm like, I'm with this girl. She is tight.
- [44:37]
B
Yeah.
- [44:38]
A
And she sounds so good. And so last sequence of the movie, this light skinned woman is standing at a piano singing a song. An audition for Trey's daddy.
- [44:53]
B
Yeah.
- [44:54]
A
Said I'm too young. And the song she sings, we find out is called highest to lowest. This is like if Amy Winehouse couldn't find the directions to Alicia Keys house. That is what is happening with this song. It is one of the. It's just so bad.
- [45:24]
B
It's not the best song. But boy, is she singing though.
- [45:27]
A
She's really giving it to him. But did you feel anything?
- [45:31]
B
And then I didn't feel much. But I will say that David King is feeling something. And he's again making his. He's Cosby and out Faces of Pleasure and he's like about to cry and it's like. And if he's asking young felon for more melody, man, there's. It's like, now that's music. You know what I mean? It's like, now that's music.
- [45:57]
A
That's the thing that really made me sad because a choice had been made. He was given an offer. Right now, okay, again, this is a felon called young Felon making this offer. But it is also saying something about where this movie anyway thinks music ought to be going. And I think it actually awakened me to think about what is going on in the arc of Spike Lee's career. Right. We are watching something that we've never seen before in that, you know, Spike Lee's been making movies since 1986. It's been almost 40 years. We've never had a black filmmaker get old on us like this. Like a popular black filmmaker. Right.
- [46:44]
B
I mean, have a full arc in this movie.
- [46:46]
A
Have a full arc that like, rhymes in some ways or corresponds with evolutions that other directors, we've gotten to see other directors age change, you know, reconsider themselves in some way.
- [47:02]
B
And you really, really, really get a chance at this movie, as you mentioned, get a chance to reflect on some of those older films. You know, the one that I thought I started thinking about was what is perhaps my favorite Spikely movie, Bamboozled.
- [47:14]
A
Ah, okay. Yes, yes.
- [47:15]
B
Which is all about representations and, you know, accidentally stumbling into success with what is a minstrel show.
- [47:22]
A
Yes.
- [47:23]
B
Spike Lee is still deciding what he wants to see.
- [47:26]
A
That's a great way to put it, Vincent.
- [47:27]
B
And even if that's a great way to put it, and if he wants to see the girl belting and doing riffs in an old school kind of way, back up in the sky. What I appreciate about this film is that it's generous for him to let us know that that is what he wants to see. And I mean that I receive it.
- [47:45]
A
That is generous for us to say by Spike Lewis. Yes, yes.
- [47:48]
B
He's like, you know, I've thought about this. I'm giving this role to A$AP Rocky. I respect this man and I feel ambivalent about the world that he represents comes from. And I know that there is a conflict, not just a class conflict, but a conflict of taste and sensibilities that is happening within me and I want to resolve it. And this film is, I think, indicative and illustrative of that struggle. And so, huh, I'm glad to know that he wants to be next to the Toni Morrison painting with the girl over in the living room, belting and sounding like something that we've maybe heard before. But that ecstasy of facial gesture that we get with feels to me like Spike Lee listening to black art. You know, he wants that feeling, but.
- [48:39]
A
I wish the song gave me that feeling.
- [48:43]
B
Yes.
- [48:44]
A
And I feel like Spike Lee. I mean, what is he, late 60s at this point?
- [48:50]
B
I guess.
- [48:50]
A
So this is a guy who, in my absolute favorite Spike Lee movie, Spike Lee, is someone who chose not to send a black man to prison. Like, this is the end of Clockers. One of the greatest endings he ever came up with. Just thinking about it might make me cry. It's Makai Pfeiffer. Just on a train.
- [49:16]
B
Yeah. Yes. Yeah.
- [49:17]
A
He has been rescued from almost certain sentencing. Imprisonment for murder.
- [49:26]
B
Yeah.
- [49:27]
A
And there's just a shot that we had never seen before of a black man just looking at open space.
- [49:34]
B
Yeah.
- [49:35]
A
He's on one side of the glass, and on the other side is not a lecture or punishment, but like, freedom, vast freedom. And here we are 30 years later.
- [49:52]
B
Now on the other side of.
- [49:54]
A
And we're seeing something new from Spike Lee, which is, you know, prison.
- [50:01]
B
But I guess I didn't read prison totally punitively, although of course it was and is. But I did think of it as a representation. Hmm. Like, even Puff Daddy himself is in jail. That jail is part of the. Like, it has become so much a part of the black imaginary or whatever that we do have to see it. And his name does have to be young Phelan. And again, the Jeffrey Wright character who has been in it and has found, you know, 5% Islam there, and it has, like, sort of become part of his, I don't know, moral becoming. And this kid who, even when he's in jail, the A$AP Rocky character is like, this is good for us. Let's make a song.
- [50:51]
A
Right.
- [50:51]
B
So Spike Lee is, like, looking at what jail, what jail is in the imaginary and is trying to sort of question that too. So it's like, yeah, it is this, like, agent of punishment and judgment. And you can't see the movie without seeing that. But it's also him saying, okay, yeah, I have freed. I have offered manumission to other people in my movies. But what does it mean for somebody to. Like, how do I deal with that? And so I think it matters, therefore, that even the public is on the side of this guy who's now going to jail. It's like, what does this mean? Can I accommodate it?
- [51:28]
A
I guess I would feel better about that if it didn't feel like David King himself was enjoying.
- [51:38]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [51:39]
A
The combination.
- [51:39]
B
The big payback, Right.
- [51:41]
A
Exactly. That's the queasy part to me, that part I don't like.
- [51:45]
B
Yeah, I don't know.
- [51:47]
A
I mean, I feel like this movie worked for you.
- [51:53]
B
I can't wait to see it again. Do you not learn to see this movie again?
- [51:57]
A
I will definitely watch it again. Yeah, I'd watch it again because I think that this movie is about something that is greater than the text.
- [52:08]
B
Yeah.
- [52:10]
A
Vincent, thanks for doing this.
- [52:12]
B
Thank you for having me. Just such a thrill.
- [52:14]
A
I mean, back at you, sir.
- [52:16]
B
This is the best.
- [52:17]
A
Thanks for doing this.
- [52:18]
B
Thank you.
- [52:41]
A
This podcast is supported by Pure Leaf Iced Tea. Take a real break with Pure Leaf. Zero sugar iced tea. All the flavor, all the sweetness, zero calories. Finally, an iced tea without compromise. Refreshingly bold and sweet, but with zero trade offs. Time for a tea break. Time for a pure leaf. Throughout the Fort Myers area, life unfolds at your own speed. Here, connecting to loved ones and yourself is an unhurried pleasure. Whether kayaking beneath mangroves, pausing to watch birds take flight, finding seashells along the shoreline, or walking the beach, each moment invites reflection. Fort Myers is a place to experience fully at a pace that just feels right. Discover a slower, more intentional way of living@VisitFort Myers.com we did it. We did another one. Also, I would just highly recommend anybody who has not seen more than two Spike Lee movies to dislike. Got Sum up asap. That's all I'm saying. This episode of Cannonball was produced by Elissa Dudley, John White and Janelle Anderson, with production assistance from Kate Lepresti. It was edited by Lisa Tobin and Austin Mitchell. This episode was also engineered by Daniel Ramirez. It was recorded by Matty Masiello, Kyle Grandillo and Nick Fitman. It features original music by Dan Powell and Diane Wong. Our theme music, as always, is by Justin Ellington. Our video team is Brooke Minters and Felice Leon. This episode was filmed by Alfredo Chiarapa and Lauren Pruitt. It was edited by Amy Marino and Jeremy rocklin. We're on YouTube, y'.
- [54:47]
B
All.
- [54:47]
A
We're still on YouTube. We're not going off YouTube. Watch and subscribe. We'll be back next week with two jams from a long ago summer. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Talk to you soon.
- [55:01]
B
Bye.