She's Gotta Have It

I remember when this movie came out. Not Spikes first film but first to gain him some attention. A very refreshing black and white low budget movie, probably one of Spikes most dedicated and best work. All characters well developed and script carefully written. A good film to watch on a lazy Sunday, showing scenes of Brooklyn as it was in the 80s.

This is a completely unique, humorous, sexy film from Spike Lee -- his first cinematic effort, using his friends from NYU film school as actors. He himself plays the role of eccentric Mars, one of heroine Nola darling's three lovers. Though I'm sure Lee wouldn't describe himself as a feminist, this film looks at so-called "promiscuity" from a distinctly liberated point of view. Perhaps women need more than one man, he wonders, because it takes several men to make up a complete person! The film is set in a rarely seen milieu, that of artistic, well-educated, middle-class, quirky urban African-Americans (like the view of black Chicago in "Love Jones"). It would be fascinating from that standpoint, even it if didn't display such ruefully witty characterizations of egotistical, clueless men.

You could spend an afternoon in far worse fashion than to rent this film, and view Lee's naked talent shining through in a film whose cost probably wouldn't pay the catering bill for one of his film projects these days. The fact that it is filmed almost entirely in black and white adds to its authenticity and charm.

I read one review on here that labeled She's Gotta Have it as Spike Lee's 'feminist view'. I would agree with this in part because he doesn't show anything- the characters really- on any one side. We see her follies completely. But I think there is a male view going on with his look at these characters too; after we see how a woman can be all liberated and free of being too restricted with who she wants to love/fool around with, there's more of a sympathy going on for the men too as the situation starts to come down to an essential thing- what does Nola REALLY want? By the end of the picture, no one can really say for certain, Nola most of all, but all the while Lee has given us a look at romance that is ordinary only in how some of the typical characteristics of men and women are portrayed at times. But really, it's also out of the ordinary on showing the little things that wouldn't get into the common romantic comedy. It's a little too loosely structured and the style isn't altogether great, but it has as much ambition as Scorsese's Who's That Knocking or Bertolucci's Before the Revolution, at least in trying to convey subject matter primarily through style.

Not to say the substance is left unchecked- in fact for the most part it's one of Lee's sharpest satires on the troubles of the sexes, and the main characters are a bit more believable than those of the main white/black couple of Jungle Fever. Lee boils it downs to seeming essentials at first- Nola (Tracy Camilla Johns, not bad at all if not as strong as the main 'heroine' could be) is a magazine painter, but really its her romantic life that keeps her usually occupied. We see the various attempts of various male 'pick-up lines' (which is pretty hilarious, if dated), and then we meet guy #1, Jamie (Tommy Hicks, maybe the best 'real' actor of the group), who is really the nice guy, the kind that any reasonable woman would consider probably marrying sooner or later. But she also has male #2, Greer (John Canada Turrell, with a great, shallow look to him if not overall performance), who is a male model who is meticulously egotistical even with folding up his clothes before sex. And then there's #3, Mars Blackmon (Lee himself, in uproariously huge glasses and his name etched out in gold across his neck, surely one of his most wonderful characters played by him), who is the jokester, and word-spinner, and always takes a while to get around in a conversation.

So around and around she goes, and it's really only until the last twenty minutes when Nola finally has to come down and make the decision- and it perhaps will have to come down to the 'right' decision- but for what she just can't tell. Part of it is that she just loves sex, which becomes a problem when she invites over the three men for thanksgiving (not a totally successful scene, mainly due to the dialog and pacing, but still a nice job in awkward tension). And also a problem when Jamie, the nice guy, makes an ultimatum for Nola. At the same time in the background there is the unusual tension of a possible lesbian affair with Opal (Raye Dowell, very good in her scenes), but nothing comes to it. Scenes like those, where the sexual and relationship-type boundaries come into question, are really interesting. The self-conscious talking-to-the-camera interview bits range from excellent to just OK though, and sort of mark the quality of the film down a peg, even as the characters get to share some of their inner thoughts (Lee's being the funniest).

What then makes Lee's film a big step above any other number of films out there, primarily in the Hollywood mainstream, about a woman who has trouble deciding what to do with herself? It's two things; one, that the men are probably just as interesting with what they have going on as her, if not more so for Jamie, and two, the cinematic techniques imposed by Lee and cinematographer Ernest Dickerson. The latter of those two helps make She's Gotta Have it even more of a light-hearted picture than it might have been if just filmed as the script is. We get the images first put to Lee's father Bill's score, which is definitely one of his best after Do the Right Thing. Then the images get a lot of invention on such a small budget, unusually intimate and creative camera angles (I loved the bit when we see in slow-motion the extreme close-ups of Mars getting close with Nola), the lighting often very expressionistic, and sometimes the editing going to playful, odd lengths like the sex scene between Nola and Greer. Sometimes the playfulness and first-time filmmaker amazement is a little much, like the color film sequence, which is beautiful but almost better self-contained than with the black & white grittiness of the rest of the film. I also could've done without the last bit after the denouement where all the actors say their names with the clapper. Nevertheless the stylistic merits add a lot to make it a richer film in context and structure.

But if you can seek it out, especially in widescreen (I saw it on IFC, though I wish I could see the director's cut to see what was cut out, however explicit it might be), it's well worth it. It's a small film, yet one that brings up some intriguing bits about what it means to really love someone vs. desire them, and what mind-games go on between men & women, men & men, women & women, and where the middle-ground could be, if at all. A minor independent/debut classic. A-

Thoroughly enjoyable 90 minutes in the quirky company of Spike Lee and his cast of weirdos. The male characters (Nora's three lovers) are all inadequate in their way, so it is hardly surprising that Nora needs several such men to satisfy her.

If men behave the way Nora behaves, it is seen as a sign of virility, whereas Nora is more or less sent to the shrink because her behaviour is so out of line.

But this is mostly comedy so you can put aside the "is it feminist, is it misogynist?" stuff and enjoy it for what it is - an unusually good low budget movie.

...for God's sake woman get rid of those candles! The idea of falling asleep with one hundred lit candles sitting directly on an extremely combustible wooden moon étagère would scare the crap out of me more than the idea of you needing more than one sexual partner! But I digress.

This was Spike Lee's first directorial and writing effort. Since this was Spike Lee BEFORE he was a brand name, nobody was going to cut him any financial slack in his filmmaking. He had to cut corners everywhere. He got his family into the act - one plays main character Nola Darling's best friend, another plays Nola's dad. And Spike Lee even acted in the film himself as Mars, one of Nola's three lovers. He managed to shoot the whole thing for 175000 dollars and grossed almost eight million at the box office. Who knows what he's made off of it due to cable broadcasts and home video.

The film explores the life of a young African American female artist, Nola Darling, living in Brooklyn, who has the same view towards sex and sexuality that many men have - she wants to play the field. She's not lying about anything, she just doesn't talk about any of the others to the one she is with at the time. Nola actually has three lovers - Mars - the fun and goofy one, Greer the sophisticate who hardly needs to eat because he is so full of himself, and Jamie, probably her soul mate. These guys rather meld into one entire man who is able to keep Nola happy. And then they find out about one another, with Jamie being the most wounded by the news.

Years before "The Red Pill" and "Men Going Their Own Way", that seems to be exactly what is going on with Nola, minus the bitterness. In fact, during the film she is torn between cutting herself off from men sexually for awhile - going her own way - and this Red Pill life in which there is no dishonesty but many lovers. Nola LIKES sex in and of itself, isn't looking to settle down, likes her Bohemian lifestyle.

For Law and Order fans, S. Epatha Merkerson shows up as Nola's therapist. The film was unique for its time because it had a completely African American perspective, was shot in black and white, had the characters talking to the camera about what they were feeling at the time, and had no pat answers, no neatly sewn up ending. As for me, I would have picked Mars. All he needed was a little career direction, and he was fun. But then I've always been a one man gal. I recommend it. I think you'll find it fascinating.