How Spike Lee blends darkness and humour in his movies: “You have to be a neurosurgeon”
Although he’s never made an out-and-out comedy that exists solely to split audiences at the sides, Spike Lee has made a lot of funny movies. His humour is never forced, stilted, or deployed for the sake of a gag, but it’s become a key part of his work nonetheless.
He’s also made a lot of powerful, hard-hitting, and resonant dramas, many of which either don’t require or would suffer from a one-liner or witty observation being made. Moments of levity are often encouraged to prevent serious films from becoming too heavy-handed, but Lee always knows how and when to do it.
It’s not an easy tightrope to walk for so long, especially when many filmmakers have repeatedly been guilty of immediately undercutting drama with a joke or shoehorning a serious dramatic moment into what’s otherwise a light-hearted and semi-comedic narrative.
She’s Gotta Have It, Do the Right Thing, 25th Hour, BlacKkKlansman, and Da 5 Bloods are just some of Lee’s joints that have mastered that divide, with each of them passing comment on prescient, timely, or relevant socio-economic or political issues while proving themselves equally capable of generating laughter in the aisles.
It’s not something that can be taught, but the filmmaker has been around long enough to have an innate understanding of when it’s time to lighten things up a little. Unfolding in the aftermath of 9/11, 25th Hour finds Edward Norton preparing for a seven-year prison stretch, forcing him to confront his final days of freedom and try to make amends for the person he’s become and where it’s led him.
Hardly laugh a minute stuff, but it’s very funny at points. As Lee explained to the BBC, “you have to be a neurosurgeon” to thread that needle, but it’s one he’s very familiar with. “But we’ve done this before, and I like balancing those two things,” he said. “Billy Wilder was great at including humour in films that had a very serious subject matter, so I like to do that.”
Of course, he wasn’t above admitting, “It’s a very difficult thing to do because you’re walking a tightrope, and one step this way or that way and it can topple you.” For Lee, it starts during the writing process and remains something he’s “mindful of all the way through the film.” Drama doesn’t have to be dour, and comedy doesn’t have to be empty-headed entertainment, but it takes a talented filmmaker to have them work in harmony without letting one overpower the other.
It’s been one of Lee’s signature stylistic traits for almost 40 years, with virtually all of his movies guaranteed to have at least one tear rolling down the cheek, whether it’s one of sadness or one of joy.
