Tag: Do The Right Thing

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Film/TV Film/TV/Etc. Blog

Never Seen It: Watching Do The Right Thing with Memphis Flyer writer Sam Cicci


For Never Seen It, I watch a classic (or maybe not-so-classic) film with an interesting person who is watching it for the first time. Sam Cicci is an associate editor at Contemporary Media, and covers Memphis 901 FC for the Memphis Flyer. He chose Spike Lee’s 1989 masterpiece Do The Right Thing.

Chris McCoy: Tell me what you know about Do The Right Thing.

Sam Cicci: Well, not a whole lot. It’s one of those things that I’ve just heard referenced a lot. I think my parents liked it when it came out. I know it’s about simmering racial tensions in New York City in what, the late eighties maybe? And it’s centered around a pizza parlor or something. I know it’s kind of like, uh, I think it’s about African-Americans and Italian immigrants, and just kind of how those cultures are clashing in this community.

CM: Have you ever seen any other Spike Lee movies?

SC: I don’t think so. I think I’ve only seen half of Da 5 Bloods. 

CM: Well, this is going to be great, then!

SC: Yeah, I’m excited. I feel like there’s a big hole in my pop culture repertoire.

120 minutes later…

CM: Sam Cicci, you are now a person who has seen Do The Right Thing. What did you think?

SC: Well, it was really good. It was phenomenal! And I’m also just filled with this overwhelming sense of sadness after it wrapped up. I guess, uh, watching it, especially in today’s climate…it was made in 1989, is that right?

CM: Yeah, ’89.

SC: I feel like it could have been made today, or 10 years ago. It has sort of a timeless feel to it. That is just really depressing, when you think about it like that.

CM: Yeah, I really felt Ruby Dee at the end. Mother Sister, you know, she just screams “No!” for probably 30 seconds of screen time. It really brought tears to my eyes this time. I feel that overwhelming sense of frustration. I really relate to that right now after like the last, you know, well, I guess five years, but really the last year specifically. When she’s screaming, it just really hit me. The whole thing is so prophetic, like when Radio Raheem is put in a choke hold by a cop and strangled to death. That’s exactly what happened to George Floyd, right? 


SC: You hear the police sirens, and that cop car starts rolling up the street, and you know it’s only going to end one way at that point. And there’s just this pit in your stomach. You know, a lot of people are giving flack to Radio Raheem, but he never does anything to warrant that. He’s just walking around with his boombox going “Hey, you guys!” and giving his “love and hate” spiel. He just seems like he’s kind of hanging out. He is never aggressive with anyone, except for when Sal destroys his boombox. It’s just heartbreaking to see what happened to him at the end of the movie. It was just so real.

CM: I think what’s interesting about Radio Raheem is, yeah, it’s obnoxious to walk into somebody’s restaurant with a boom box. But it’s not get-killed-over obnoxious.

CM: This is a film that had a huge influence on my life. I was 18 years old in 1989, and I wanted to be a filmmaker, and Spike Lee was one of the people that made me want to be a filmmaker. This time, it felt a lot deeper. It’s a movie that’s gotten deeper with time. I felt like, back in the day, it really taught me a lot. But now, one thing that struck me this time was, this movie is not about answers. It’s almost like he’s struggling to sort of define what the actual problem is. All of these characters are really multifaceted. Spike himself, Mookie, he’s kind of a jerk, you know? He’s a deadbeat dad. But everybody has bad parts and good parts.

SC: Absolutely. I agree with your point, too, about, trying to figure out what the issue is, exactly. You spend a lot of time with everyone and every group, and between all these characters, there is just kind of this simmering tension, a little bit of racism between all the different groups who occupy this neighborhood. But even through all that, there is a coexistence there that seems to be running fairly smoothly. I find myself sympathizing with Buggin’ Out’s protest. It feels tough to unpack this all at once, right after watching it. I understand that he’s angry; I don’t know if taking it out on Sal like that is the best way to do it. But it also feels like the only place he can direct his anger. And on the flip side, I don’t know why Sal can’t just put some photos of Black people up on his wall of fame.

Mookie (Spike Lee) and Sal (Danny Aiello) in front of the all-Italian “Wall of Fame.”

CM: Yeah, ’cause it’s all gesture, right? Putting Muhammad Ali up there costs him nothing. Maybe he even learns something.

SC: His son, Pino, is pretty racist. But Sal on the other hand, he wants to live here and stay in business here. But then just being unwilling to do that little gesture, it shows that he really hasn’t connected with the neighborhood that supports him as much as he should have.

CM: He doesn’t want to put Black people on the wall. He only wants Italian people on the wall, because this is an Italian restaurant. This is my restaurant. I built this with my hands, and I’m Italian, and also the food here is Italian food. So there should be Italian people on the wall. Then the black people in the neighborhood, in Bed-Stuy, they’re like, no, this is our neighborhood. So that’s why we should have people like us on the wall. I understand both points of view. I don’t want somebody coming into my house and telling me what kind of art I can put on my wall. But on the other hand, they’re his customers, and they sustain the place, and they want to see themselves represented. There’s also another layer to the movie. These people are all in this together. They’re all alike on a deeper level that they can’t even see. Buggin’ Out and his band of aggro friends, they can’t see Sal’s point of view, even though it’s not that different from their own. Everybody has blind spots in this movie, that’s what I’m trying to say.

SC: It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to think about. The part that’s still so relevant now was really upsetting.

CM: The riot at the end, that sequence is just amazing. It’s so well put together and it just looks great. And yet, it’s also really emotional. Of course, since The Mayor tells Mookie at the beginning, “Do the right thing,” the question of this movie has always been, “Does Mookie do the right thing or not?” And I don’t think the movie knows.

SC: It got me thinking about current events as well, where one side will value property damage over the life of an innocent person. Everything just keeps spiraling.

CM: It’s Shakespearian, in that way. Did it feel stagey to you?

SC: What do you mean by that, exactly?

CM: I love how theatrical it feels, like it’s almost a stage play. 

SC: Oh! I can see that for sure. You’ve got this kind of small setting, and you’re hopping around among a bunch of little vignettes. Everyone comes together at the end, but you have these self-contained stories throughout. I could definitely see that making a jump into the theater.

CM: I guess the other big part of this movie is “Fight the Power”, the Public Enemy song in the intro with Rosie Perez dancing. I saw an internet poll a couple of years ago, and this was voted the best opening credits sequence of all time—and it wasn’t even close.

CM: I just love everything about it. “Fight The Power” is my favorite hip hop song of all time, and she was a Soul Train dancer. 

SC: Really?

CM: Yeah, this was her first part. She was a regular on Soul Train when she auditioned for this movie.

SC: Wow. I was going to say, I bought new speakers for my TV recently and didn’t realize how high I had them cranked up when I started the movie. And then I was like, Whoa, I’m ready to go now! Ready to go fight the power or join a protest or something! Let’s do this! And I wish I could dance! That was another thing: It really started out with a bang. It started on a high, and then gradually spiraled down as things took a turn.

On the Bed-Stuy street in Do The Right Thing.

CM: It just looked hot. That’s one thing that this movie does well, because it was filmed mostly outside. But they were blasting the lights the whole time, so it felt hot, you know? And I think that really adds to the tension. 

SC: Literal and figurative heating up. I think that just helps push people to a breaking point.

CM: You feel that in Memphis, sometimes, don’t you?

SC: Oh yeah.

Giancarlo Esposito as Buggin’ Out.

CM: So, would you recommend people watch Do The Right Thing? 

SC: Absolutely. First of all, I just thought it was a really good movie across the board. And on top of that, it’s still so relevant. I hate saying that over and over again, because I want that to not be true. But I liked seeing so many names I recognized pop up. There’s Martin Lawrence, and Giancarlo Esposito, I hadn’t realized he was in this. He’s so good.

CM: Buggin’ Out is just a classic character. And then, Samuel L. Jackson is the DJ. Most of these people were at the beginning of their careers. I think Sam Jackson had been around for a while at that point, but he was all bit parts, like, he’s the guy who robs the McDowell’s in Coming To America. 

SC: I’m curious, how was this movie received when it first came out? What was the reception like?  

CM: A lot of people thought it should have been nominated for Best Picture. It wasn’t. Driving Miss Daisy won that year.

SC: Oh, god.

CM: Yeah. A lot of the debate was what I said earlier: “Does Mookie do the right thing?” The ending was very controversial, because of the riot. In retrospect, I think some people laid expectations on Spike to give us all the answers to racism, but that’s not his purpose here. He’s trying to frame the question. I mean, it’s just like today, you know? Like you said, nothing has changed. If that ending came out in a film today, it would provoke exactly the same conversation as it did in 1989. I swear. It’s depressing just to say it out loud, but it’s true. It’s the truth. 

SC: Yeah. What is Mookie supposed to do?

CM: I don’t know.

SC: It’s an impossible situation.

CM: There aren’t any right answers. Part of what is so insightful about this movie is that it’s a bunch of ordinary people faced with these completely unsolvable moral dilemmas. There’s a series of them, and it escalates until you’re sitting on the curb with Mookie while the neighborhood is going up in flames. In that moment, this is not a person who thinks he’s done the right thing.

SC: The look on his face was like, ‘Oh no…’.

CM: But that’s part of the point. Racism backs people into these corners, you know? Like you said, Sal is generous throughout the whole thing. Danny Aiello, by the way is so good in this.

SC: Oh, he’s amazing!

Danny Aiello as Sal

CM: I found that very moving, this time, when he says, “Look at this whole neighborhood. They grew up on my food.” That means something, that’s beautiful to me. But then his kid, John Turturro, he’s awful. Another thing I found really remarkable this time was the conversation between Mookie and Pino, where they actually sit down and kind of try to work it out for a minute. That seems like a very screenwriter thing to do—let’s put these two characters together, bounce them off each other, see what happens, you know? And I don’t mean that in a denigrating way. It’s a time-honored writing tradition, believe me. What was really interesting to me was, they saw their commonality and kind of chose not to pursue it.

SC: Yeah. The crux of the whole flashpoint is, even though there is all this commonality here, they just can’t, in the end, quite get it together. And I guess they want to fight the power, but the power is this, you know, institutional racial and economic disenfranchisement. It’s not really there on screen. There’s not a physical manifestation of it, except for when the police show up, so there’s just not really an outlet for their anger.

CM: I think you’re exactly right. They’re looking for something to fight, but the thing that they need to fight is not there in front of them, so they just start fighting each other.

The Sal’s Pizzaria staff: Spike Lee, Danny Aiello, Richard Edson, and John Turturro.

SC: Man, what a movie! what should I watch from Spike Lee next?

CM: Well, you should finish watching Da 5 Bloods. Start again, maybe, with fresh eyes. It should have been nominated for Best Picture, because it literally was the best picture last year. Spike got flat robbed. I think as part of it was the fact that Oscar season was longer this year, and Da 5 Bloods came out back in the summer. People forgot about it. But the man gets no respect. Driving Miss Daisy? Give me a break.

SC: When you say it out loud, it sounds so terrible. I remember thinking about Spike Lee not getting respect, too, in other ways. There was that whole fiasco he got in with the Knicks a while back, at Madison Square Garden, when they kept denying him entry through some door he’d always been using for games. He’s been buying floor seats to that garbage team for years, they should build a statue of him for that. It must be excruciating to support the Knicks. 

CM: We can agree on that. Somebody needs to be building statues of Spike Lee.

 

 

 

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Film Features Film/TV

Retro Video: Do The Right Thing

Back in July when the Memphis Flyer was celebrating its 25th anniversary, former film editor Greg Akers asked me and Addison Engelking to make lists of our favorite movies of the past 25 years. Since I hate lists, I decided to write the story of the indie film movement. Engelking warned me that it was a fool’s errand, but I did it anyway, and it turned out okay. But every day since the story ran, I have thought of another movie I should have included. My most egregious omission was Spike Lee’s breakthrough, Do The Right Thing. So I resolved to use my first week as the Flyer‘s film editor to rectify my error. Little did I know how timely it would be.

Looking back on it after a decade and a half of digital verité, the film seems intentionally stagey and dramatic, like a hip hop West Side Story. The Hattiloo could probably do a killer live adaptation without changing the script very much. But confining it to the proscenium would rob it of Lee’s visual sense, which gives the story a dreamlike quality. Lee’s visual vocabulary is stylish but clear. He ranges freely from sensationalist blaxploitation camera moves to Martin Scorsese street grit to F.W. Murnau expressionism, but every move has a reason; nothing is just for show.

Do The Right Thing is about tribalism. Each of the 27 or so characters who passes through the Bedford Stuyvesant corner on the sweltering summer day is identified with his or her tribes and subtribes: black, white, Hispanic, Asian, businessman, bum, old, young. Lee juggles the ensemble with the ease of Robert Altman, coaxing good performances out of both veterans like Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, and then-newcomers Rosie Perez and Bill Nunn. Lee’s Mookie is reserved and observant as the exaggerated types parade around him, but ironically it’s Danny Aiello’s Sal who is the best drawn character in the entire ensemble, and it earned him a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

Do The Right Thing

Lee repeatedly highlights how our tribes enrich and protect us but also cause friction, distrust, and conflict. People talk past each other, such as the moment when Nunn’s Radio Raheem tries to buy batteries from a Korean shop owner. Each tribe acts self destructively at some point in the story, and when the inevitable riot breaks out, it’s everybody’s fault and nobody’s fault. Is Sal wrong to get mad when Bugging Out and Radio Raheem come into his business and blast Public Enemy? No, but he shouldn’t have smashed the boom box. Is Buggin’ Out’s demand to get some black faces on the walls of Sal’s Famous Pizza unreasonable? No, but it wasn’t worth destroying the center of the neighborhood because of it.

In Lee’s vision, society and race relations are the aggregated result of individual choices. We may be buffeted by the currents of tribe and class, but our moral choices are still our own. Does Mookie do the right thing by throwing the first trash can? Lee doesn’t give you the luxury of an easy answer. As Lyndon Johnson said, “Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.”

Then there’s “Fight The Power.” Lee asked Public Enemy’s Chuck D and Hank Shocklee to create an anthem for his film, and they turned in one of, if not the, greatest songs of the hip hop era. As the opening credits roll over Perez dancing fiercely like a boxer entering the ring, there is a sense of real danger. This was not just a perfect pairing of image and music, but pure cinema as a revolutionary act. And that’s just the opening credits.

Do The Right Thing was released in June 1989, and by the time I took my first film class in the fall of 1991, it was already part of the curriculum. It was controversial at the time, with some commentators suggesting that it would cause African-American audiences to riot. Rewatching it the same week as the riots over the police killing of an unarmed black teenager in Ferguson, Missouri, it’s clear that it is not a provocation, but a comment on a stubbornly persistent reality.

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Film Features Film/TV

The Sweet Thereafter

In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Memphis Flyer (our first quarter quell, as it were), I have chosen my personal favorite film from each year since the Flyer began publication. Then, for each of those films, I unearthed and have excerpted some quotes from the review we ran at the time. — Greg Akers

1989: #1 Mystery Train, Jim Jarmusch (#2 Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee)

“While all the scenes in Mystery Train are identifiable by anyone living west of Goodlett, their geographical relationship gets altered to a point where we start to trust Jarmusch more than our own memories.” — Jim Newcomb, March 8, 1990

“Filmed primarily at the downtown corner of South Main and Calhoun, Jarmusch does not use the Peabody Hotel, the Mississippi River, Graceland, or most of the other locations that the Chamber of Commerce would thrust before any visiting filmmaker. His domain concerns exactly that territory which is not regularly tread by the masses, and his treatment of Memphis is likely to open a few eyes.”
— Robert Gordon, March 8, 1990

1990: #1 Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese (#2 Reversal of Fortune, Barbet Schroeder)

“This may not be De Niro’s best-ever performance, but he’s got that gangster thang down pat. His accent is flawless, his stature is perfect, and, boy, does he give Sansabelt slacks new meaning.”
— The Cinema Sisters, September 27, 1990

1991: #1 Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron (#2 The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme)

“Terminator 2 is an Alfa Romeo of a movie: pricey, sleek, fast, and loaded with horsepower. By comparison, the first Terminator was a Volkswagen. On the whole, I’d rather have a Volkswagen — they’re cheap and reliable. But, hey, Alfas can be fun too.” — Ed Weathers, July 11, 1993

1992: #1 Glengarry Glen Ross, James Foley (#2 The Last of the Mohicans, Michael Mann)

“Mamet’s brilliantly stylized look at the American Dream’s brutality as practiced by low-rent real estate salesmen who would put the screws to their mothers to keep their own tawdry jobs doesn’t relax its hard muscle for a moment. In the hands of this extraordinary cast, it is like a male chorus on amphetamines singing a desparate, feverish ode to capitalism and testosterone run amuck.”
— Hadley Hury, October 15, 1992

1993: #1 Dazed and Confused, Richard Linklater (#2 Jurassic Park, Steven Spielberg)

“Dazed and Confused is a brief trip down memory lane. The characters are not just protagonists and antagonists. They are clear representations of the folks we once knew, and their feelings are those we had years and years ago. Linklater doesn’t, however, urge us to get mushy. He is just asking us to remember.”
— Susan Ellis, November 4, 1993

1994: #1 Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino (#2 Ed Wood, Tim Burton)

“Even though Tarantino is known for his bratty insistence on being shocking by way of gratuitous violence and ethnic slurs, it’s the little things that mean so much in a Tarantino film — camera play, dialogue, performances, and music.”
— Susan Ellis, October 20, 1994

1995: #1 Heat, Michael Mann
(#2 Toy Story, John Lasseter)

“I’m sick of lowlifes and I’m sick of being told to find them fascinating by writers and directors who get a perverse testosterone rush in exalting these lives to a larger-than-life heroism with slow-motion, lovingly lingered-over mayhem and death, expertly photographed and disturbingly dehumanizing.”
— Hadley Hury, December 21, 1995

1996: #1 Lone Star, John Sayles
(#2 Fargo, Joel and Ethan Coen)

“Although Lone Star takes place in a dusty Texas border town, it comes into view like a welcome oasis on the landscape of dog-day action films … Chris Cooper and Sayles’ sensitive framing of the performance produce an arresting character who inhabits a world somewhere between Dostoevsky and Larry McMurtry.”
— Hadley Hury, August 8, 1996

1997: #1 L.A. Confidential, Curtis Hanson (#2 The Apostle, Robert Duvall)

L.A. Confidential

“L.A. Confidential takes us with it on a descent, and not one frame of this remarkable film tips its hand as to whether we’ll go to hell or, if we do, whether we’ll come back. We end up on the edge of our seat, yearning for two protagonists, both anti-heroes … to gun their way to a compromised moral victory, to make us believe again in at least the possibility of trust.”

— Hadley Hury, October 2, 1997

1998: #1 Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg (#2 The Big Lebowski, Joel and Ethan Coen)

“Spielberg is finishing the job he began with Schindler’s List. He’s already shown us why World War II was fought; now he shows us how. … Spielberg’s message is that war is horrifying yet sometimes necessary. And that may be true. But I still prefer the message gleaned from Peter Weir’s 1981 masterpiece, Gallipoli: War is stupid.” — Debbie Gilbert, July 30, 1998

1999: #1 Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson (#2 The End of the Affair, Neil Jordan)

“Magnolia is a film in motion; there’s a cyclical nature where paths are set that will be taken. It’s about fate, not will, where the bad will hurt and good will be redeemed.”
— Susan Ellis, January 13, 2000

2000: #1 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee (#2 You Can Count On Me, Kenneth Lonergan)

“Thrilling as art and entertainment, as simple movie pleasure, and as Oscar-baiting ‘prestige’ cinema. Early hype has the film being compared to Star Wars. … An even more apt comparison might be Singin’ in the Rain, a genre celebration that Crouching Tiger at least approaches in its lightness, joy, and the sheer kinetic wonder of its fight/dance set pieces.”
— Chris Herrington, February 1, 2001

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

2001: #1 A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg (#2 Amélie,
Jean-Pierre Jeunet)

“What happens when Eyes Wide Shut meets E.T.? What does the audience do? And who is the audience?”
— Chris Herrington, June 28, 2001

2002: #1 City of God, Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund
(#2 Adaptation., Spike Jonze)

“The mise-en-scène of the film is neorealist, but the cinematography, editing, and effects are hyper-stylized, as if The Bicycle Thief had been reimagined through the post-CGI lens of Fight Club or The Matrix.”

— Chris Herrington, April 3, 2003

Lost in Translation

2003: #1 Lost in Translation, Sofia
Coppola (#2 Mystic River, Clint Eastwood)

“Lost in Translation is a film short on plot but rich with incident; nothing much happens, yet every frame is crammed with life and nuance and emotion. … What Coppola seems to be going for here is an ode to human connection that is bigger than (or perhaps just apart from) sex and romance.”
— Chris Herrington, October 2, 2003

2004: #1 Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Michel Gondry
(#2 Kill Bill, Quentin Tarantino)

“This is the best film I’ve seen this year and one of the best in recent memory. Funny, witty, charming, and wise, it runs the gamut from comedy to tragedy without falling into either farce or melodrama. Its insights into human loss and redemption are complicated and difficult, well thought out but with the illusion and feel of absolute spontaneity and authentic in its construction — and then deconstruction — of human feelings and memory.”
— Bo List, March 25, 2004

2005: #1 Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee (#2 Hustle & Flow, Craig Brewer)

“The film is a triumph because it creates characters of humanity and anguish, in a setup that could easily become a target for homophobic ridicule. Jack and Ennis are a brave challenge to the stereotyped image of homosexuals in mainstream films, their relations to their families and to each other are truthful and beautifully captured.” — Ben Popper, January 12, 2006

2006: #1 Children of Men,
Alfonso Cuarón (#2 The Proposition, John Hillcoat)

“As aggressively bleak as Children of Men is, it’s ultimately a movie about hope. It’s a nativity story of sort, complete with a manger. And from city to forest to war zone to a lone boat in the sea, it’s a journey you won’t want to miss.”
— Chris Herrington, January 11, 2007

2007 #1 Zodiac, David Fincher
(#2 There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson)

“[Zodiac is] termite art, too busy burrowing into its story and characters to bother with what you think.”
— Chris Herrington, March 8, 2007

2008: #1 Frozen River, Courtney Hunt (#2 The Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan)

“Frozen River is full of observations of those who are living less than paycheck to paycheck: digging through the couch for lunch money for the kids; buying exactly as much gas as you have change in your pocket; popcorn and Tang for dinner. The American Dream is sought after by the dispossessed, the repossessed, and the pissed off.”
— Greg Akers, August 28, 2008

2009: #1 Where the Wild Things Are, Spike Jonze (#2 Julie & Julia, Nora Ephron)

“I know how ridiculous it is to say something like, ‘Where the Wild Things Are is one of the best kids’ movies in the 70 years since The Wizard of Oz.’ So I won’t. But I’m thinking it.”
— Greg Akers, October 15, 2009

2010: #1 Inception, Christopher Nolan (#2 The Social Network,
David Fincher)

“Nolan has created a complex, challenging cinematic world but one that is thought through and whose rules are well-communicated. But the ingenuity of the film’s concept never supersedes an emotional underpinning that pays off mightily.”
— Chris Herrington, July 15, 2010

2011: #1 The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick (#2 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Tomas Alfredson)

“The Tree of Life encompasses a level of artistic ambition increasingly rare in modern American movies — Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood might be the closest recent comparison, and I’m not sure it’s all that close. This is a massive achievement. An imperfect film, perhaps, but an utterly essential one.”
— Chris Herrington, June 23, 2011

2012: #1 Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow (#2 Lincoln, Steven Spielberg)

“Zero Dark Thirty is essentially an investigative procedural about an obsessive search for knowledge, not unlike such touchstones as Zodiac or All the President’s Men. And it has an impressive, immersive experiential heft, making much better use of its nearly three-hour running time than any competing award-season behemoth.”
— Chris Herrington, January 10, 2013 

2013: #1 12 Years a Slave, Steve
McQueen (#2 Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón)

“Slavery bent human beings into grotesque shapes, on both sides of the whip. But 12 Years a Slave is more concerned with the end of it. McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley are black. It’s one of those things that shouldn’t be notable but is. If you consider 12 Years a Slave with The Butler and Fruitvale Station, you can see a by-God trend of black filmmakers making mainstream movies about the black experience, something else that shouldn’t be worth mentioning but is.”
— Greg Akers, October 31, 2013