Spike Lee: My Spat With Eastwood May Have Cost Me Oscar

Spike Lee told King magazine that he fears his public war of words with Clint Eastwood may have cost him an Oscar nomination.

Earlier this year, at Cannes, Lee criticized Eastwood for not having African-Americans in Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, Eastwood then said Lee should "shut his face" and Lee responded "we're not on a plantation."
Now Lee thinks the controversy that followed his remarks may have ruined his Academy Award chances for new movie "Miracle at St. Anna."

Lee tells King magazine:

"My wife Tonya told me I may have hurt my chances with the Clint Eastwood stuff... They (Oscar voters and Academy bosses) take everything into account with me. They take into account that I like the Knicks or that I'm in New York."

Lee is adamant the fact he's a Big Apple guy has cost him an Oscar Best Director nomination in the past: "If you did a survey, the bulk of the people who vote in the Academy are in Los Angeles. There's definite bias, considering that my films are typically New York-based." He's still upset that his Do The Right Thing movie wasn't even considered for an Oscar the year Driving Miss Daisy claimed Best Film.

He adds, "Nobody is watching motherfucking Driving Miss Daisy today. Do The Right Thing is being taught in classes at major universities and high schools all over the world. That's how you're supposed to test art. Does the work stand up?"

Comments

[dkuz09]

He right, He right. I can't count how many times "Do The Right Thing" was mentioned in film class or in textbooks or screened. But I can count how many times I ever saw Driving Miss Daisy mentioned: 1 time, in theatre class, when we were discussing Morgan Freeman roles during break.

[Stanley]

Splee is a master of self promotion. He creates controversy and then blames it on his limited recognition of greatness. Regardless of what you think of him or his movies, don't accuse him of being stupid. He gets how this works and he works it hard. He is creating interest in a movie where there wasn't any at all, simply by being controversial. The stooges are the press who play along. Do you really think Spike or Clint give a rats ass about what was said or each other? Getting Clint to say shut your face was a big win. It brought attention to the film. Success!

[tombollocks]

Maybe you just don't have it any more. Maybe you are a mental weakling that blames your shortcomings on others. Maybe you should think before you speak. Try it. It is simple, once you get used to it.

Whiner.

[rex74]

couldn't be that you make lousy movies spike?

[JeremyO]

Spike Lee films are better than 90% of today's films for sure. I can't stand all this Hollywood crapola, Lee advances the art form. But there is something to be said about a modest person.

[alsm9]

I agree with you. He is a good film maker, but I find it really off putting when someone "toots there own horn". And someone should ask Mr. Lee, does he make films because he is passionate about his art or for the accolades? Getting an oscar does not indicate artistic merit in my opinion, it just means the industry likes you. The industry is racist and sexist, if that is what he is out to prove, well, we all know this, and whining that you haven't been given an oscar or that you don't have a fair shot isn't going to change that.

[StanTheManic]

I heard Spike give an interview in which he used the word "articulunt" -- a word I just can't seem to find in the dictionary.

Ironic, huh? Talking about being articulate but not being able to say it.

Maybe that's the kind of stuff people think of when they think of Spike Lee.

[javaman]

perhaps if mr. lee made a good movie then he would get an oscar. And besides any filmmaker worth their salt, doesn't give a rats *ss about winning an oscar.

[iluvsam]

Sorry, but I love "Driving Miss Daisy".

[danton2000]

Spike, you are not getting an Oscar because you have made a mediocre film (at best) Here is the early word from the Toronto Film Fest from The Village Voice this week. Good luck champ.

Lee's Miracle at St. Anna isn't quite as catastrophic, although, at nearly three hours, it's almost as pointless. Lee has been publicly critical of Clint Eastwood for failing to include any African-Americans in his 2006 Iwo Jima diptych, but while Lee puts his buffalo soldiers front-and-center in this awkward hybrid of fable and WWII epic, the characters themselves are straight out of central casting: a smooth-talking Harlem lothario; an indignant polemicist; the requisite Uncle Tom; and a towering, soft-spoken "chocolate giant," as he is nicknamed by the young Italian boy whose lives the soldiers help to save in the titular Tuscan village. The motives of Lee's film—to stake a claim for the black servicemen who fought and died for our country—are undeniably admirable, and the film itself (like all of Lee's work) impeccably well-made. But this sliver of a narrative is the sort of thing Sam Fuller would have dispensed with in 80 minutes or so, whereas Lee hunkers it down with familiar wartime atrocities, flashbacks­-within-fl­ashbacks, and a wholly unnecessary wraparound story set in the 1980s.

Review By Scott Foundas

[IronMikeHouston]

Maybe your stupid comments about the administration blowing up the levies in NOLA. Everyone knows you have an agenda and will lie through your teeth to achieve the agenda.

[anghiari]

His comments about Nola have nothing to do with his problems now. Most people who support the administration are still watching Birth of a Nation. He has made real movie goers angry.
What Spike Lee is still doing is trying to create enough controversey around his film to get it seen. Over the summer most films good, bad and ugly died on the vine. However, as Spike the mouth does quite regularly is pick the wrong guy with whom to start a fight. Clint is not nor ever been a racist and one can believe that his film was based on his version of the experience he was depicting. Just as Spike does in his films. Enough movie goers are so angered by his stupid remark, he may have lost us and we won't go see the film anyway. The angry young man thing gets old. Get smart!

[uheardme]

Spike

No one has seen your movie yet. You are getting ahead of yourself.

[beave0202]

Spike has been nominated for an Academy Award TWICE and presented on the show.

He was nominated for Best Screenplay in 1990 and Best Documentary Film 1998 for which the Director and Producer get nominated he served as both.

What is he talking about?

Is he still mad that he didn't get a Best Director Nomination for Do The Right Thing?

The director of Best Picture Winner Driving Ms. Daisy wasn't nominated either that year.

Oliver Stone won Best Director for Born on the 4th July.

He will win an Oscar someday---

[JubilationLeigh]

Can you be an outspoken critic of the mainstream but still want it's acceptance?

Spike has a succesful career doing something he loves. There are talented directors who can't get a gig doing a television commercial. He's outspoken and controversial. Calling out Clint Eastwood probably doesn't even come into the radar when it comes to the things he's said to put a wedge between himself and the Academy or himself and movie goers. And as other comments have pointed out, the number of talented people who have been snubbed by the Oscars (or the Emmys or the Grammys) is legion.

Do the right thing, Spike. Stop whining about the Oscars and enjoy the fact that your work is standing up to the test of time and that you have influenced future filmmakers. Oh and that you make money then I ever will.

[Tulka2]

Look, i am an old white women who lives in Washington state, but knows Hollywood.­..long story. The demographic profile is just to back up my opinion. In New York they don't care so much, but in L.A. they are wicked jelous of New York's cool. It's the part about New York not caring so much that really makes them eat their shorts in L.A.

[Bullfrog]

What cost Lee the Oscar is the fact that he has no talent.

[TheSecularist]

He has great talent! And chutzpah, too!