Do the Right Thing is a comedy-drama film, released in 1989, that focuses on the racial tensions in a neighborhood in New York City as they come to a head on the hottest day of the year. The acclaimed yet controversial film was written and directed by Spike Lee and was nominated for two Academy Awards. It is included on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 greatest American films of all time.
I have been given only a few filmgoing experiences in my life to equal the first time I saw “Do the Right Thing.” Most movies remain up there on the screen. Only a few penetrate your soul. In May of 1989 I walked out of the screening at the Cannes Film Festival with tears in my eyes. Spike Lee had done an almost impossible thing. He'd made a movie about race in America that empathized with all the participants. He didn't draw lines or take sides but simply looked with sadness at one racial flashpoint that stood for many others.Not everybody thought the film was so even-handed. I sat behind a woman at the press conference who was convinced the film would cause race riots. Some critics agreed. On the Criterion DVD of the film, Lee reads from his reviews, noting that Joe Klein, in New York magazine, laments the burning of Sal's Pizzeria but fails to even note that it follows the death of a young black man at the hands of the police.Many audiences are shocked that the destr