By Odienator
[A contribution to Close-Up Blog-a-thon.]
When Mo Better Blues' jazzman hero, Bleek Gilliam (Denzel Washington), walks into the jazz club where his former bandmate Shadow Henderson (Wesley Snipes) is showcasing his new group, he is met literally and figuratively by director Spike Lee: Literally in that Lee shares the frame as Bleek's compulsive gambler/former manager Giant; figuratively in that Lee's camera brings him into focus over Clarke Betancourt's shoulder after she sings the opening lines of W.C. Handy's "Harlem Blues":
"You can never tell what's in a man's mind
And if he's from Harlem, there's no use of even trying."
Except for one brief shot of Giant beckoning for him to move toward the stage, Bleek is absent from the scene until he is afforded his close-up. During their love affair, Clarke (Cynda Williams) repeatedly expressed her desire to sing with Bleek's band, only to be dismissed by Bleek as "not ready." Since we never hear her sing until this moment, her ample talent comes as a revelation.
Beforehand, Clarke Betancourt existed in this predominantly male universe solely as a pretty, vapid receptacle for Bleek and Shadow's lust.
But when she finally sings, she levels the playing field, giving her a female dignity rarely seen in a Spike Lee joint.
The male musicians in Mo' Better Blues speak their emotions through the God-given mastery of their man made instruments, pieces of metal that reveal that which they cannot express in words. Clarke's emotions flow directly from the source, unimpeded and untranslated by any man-made instrument. It makes her formerly suppressed feelings purer, almost divine by comparison. She glows in the bluish light that illuminates her.
It is fitting that she sings a blues number, for Bleek Gilliam has had plenty of reasons to have the blues. A year earlier, Bleek's ego and womanizing alienated him from his band and the two women who vied for his affection, and Giant's debts led Bleek to be brutally silenced by his own conversation piece. 
The trumpet is an intimate instrument for its owner. The saxophone seduces the listener, but a trumpet player orally seduces his horn. Learning to play the trumpet is like kissing a doorknob, but like any kiss, once you get good at it, it's a happy and sensual experience. Bleek's blues reach their nadir when criminal Samuel L. Jackson uses the seduced to destroy the seducer. With his trumpet-smashed lips, the talkative Bleek has gone mute, rendering him useless to do the thing he loved most--telling the world how great he thinks he is.
W.C. Handy played Bleek's instrument, and the irony of Clarke singing a trumpeter's blues song does not go unnoticed. When she sings "since my sweetie left me Harlem, well it ain't the same old place," she might be channeling Bleek's feelings about his horn. Yet, Lee withholds any reaction shot of Bleek until near the end of the song. When Lee gives us Bleek, Washington plays the close-up as a meditation on loss. There's no need to try to read this Harlem man's mind; his eyes tell us he realizes the depth of his mistakes.
When Clarke finally acknowledges Bleek's presence, it is done in an equally knowing close-up. "I told you so," she seems to say with her smile.
Blues may not be Spike Lee's masterpiece, but it is cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's. Despite Blues' flaws, most of which are dialogue-related, this is a beautiful piece of cinema. In Do The Right Thing, Dickerson made the viewer feel as hot as the tortured Bed-Stuy residents felt on the hottest day of the year. In Mo' Better Blues, he gives you life through a jazzman's eyes.
He bathes the opening credits sequence's trumpet in a sumptuous, shiny metallic blue light--one can almost feel the coolness of the instrument against the skin.
He shoots sunny exteriors with such brightness they hurt the eyes, giving a vampiric sense of what morning must be like for a night owl. (There's a shot of the sun's rays coming through Bleek's window that is nothing short of astonishing; this is to light what Gordon Willis is to darkness.)
Red is also a dominant color of Dickerson's work here, and it's always synonymous with the dangers of sin--the bright red light that bursts forth from the open door of the jazz club as Lee is dragged out to be beaten by Jackson, the same red dress that both of Bleek's women wear to a meeting at which they were not supposed to simultaneously appear--and he treats those cool blues and hot reds like the proverbial angel and devil on one's shoulders.
It's a brightly colored noir aesthetic. The streets shimmer with wetness in the alley where Bleek's life changes, and Dickerson is careful to capture the glint of light reflecting against the trumpet that smashes Bleek's face in--it glows as if touched by King Midas himself.
Like the musician's instruments and Clarke's voice, Dickerson expresses what he wants us to feel through his cinematic palette. One wishes Lee had trusted these images more, instead of bogging them down with clunky dialogue. By setting Bleek's moment of revelation to a song, Lee was able to resist writing any exposition. He let his instrument speak for itself, crafting one of the best pieces of visual storytelling in his career.
Odienator is a contributor to The House Next Door and Edward Copeland on Film.
Excellent, Odie! I've always loved this movie, too, depsite its flaws. And speaking of flawless: Cynda Williams!
Niice. "Blues may not be Spike Lee's masterpiece, but it is cinematographer Ernest Dickerson's." I remember reading in Spike's book on the film that Ernest Dickerson did the storyboards and had unusual control over the blocking. It shows. This flick has some of the most fluid, virtuosic scenes in all of Spike's work.
I've gone through the same experience with this movie so many, many times. It's on cable, and I come into it at some point, and I sit there watching and listening in amazement (usually because I came in during a musical number or a montage). And I think, "This is a masterpiece. Why didn't I like it when it first came out?" And then the characters start talking to each other about themselves and their relationships, in that horrible Cassavetes-goes-to-junior high dialogue, and I think, "Oh, yeah — that's why." "Do the Right Thing" and "Malcolm X" notwithstanding, Lee is so much better with images than with words that it's practically a case study in why certain filmmakers should not direct their own scripts. (He's recently moved into directing other people's screenplays — "Sucker Free City" on Showtime was a particularly underrated work, if anyone out there is interested — and while he surely does a ton of rewriting and still encourages improvisation, I think the shift has benefited him.
Even at his worst, though, his images sing. This movie is a case in point. Some of the still frames represented in this piece are so beautiful on their own terms — like that blurry image of Bleek flying backwards after getting smacked in the face with his own trumpet, looking like a wraith in a Francis Bacon painting — that I just have to marvel at the man's gifts.
As for the movie not being a realistic representation of jazz or jazz musicians — a complaint I heard lodged quite emphatically by the many musicians in my circle — I have to say, "Whatever. Melville's gangster pictures bore almost no relation to the lives of real hitmen." It's a dream, and often a lovely one.
Shamus, Williams' singing is flawless, but Lee does little with her otherwise. One of my biggest peeves with Spike is his casual misogyny. He hasn't written a credible female character in his entire career. Occasionally he's saved from his own issues (Ruby Dee in Do The Right Thing springs to mind), but more often he's worse to women than Lina Wertmueller. This man is clueless, as most men are, when it comes to females. He doesn't even do the famous Jack Nicholson suggestion of writing a man and "tak[ing] away reason and accountability." I don't know where the hell Spike gets these "chicks."
Boone: Ernest Dickerson did the storyboards and had unusual control over the blocking.
He did a fantastic job. I wonder why this level of craft isn't evident in most of Dickerson's directorial output.
MZS: then the characters start talking to each other about themselves and their relationships, in that horrible Cassavetes-goes-to-junior high dialogue
That's a perfect description! Some of Spike's worst dialogue is here. It doesn't sink the movie, but it does make you want to press mute and immerse yourself in the images.
Of course, loyal House Next Door readers know I'm partial to a particular passage of dialogue from this movie, the "Shadow Henderson" speech as I call it: "That's bullshit! Everything…everything you just said is bullshit!" So there are some good lines in the movie after all.
Ooh, ooh, can't forget Sam Pollard, a frequent Spike editor of exceptional rhythm and sensitivity– judging from the way he cut Mo Better, 4 Little Girls and When the Levees Broke (though Spike's other main cutter, Barry Alexander Brown, is no slouch).
I remember seeing a photo montage in a Gordon Parks documentary and wondering who the hell could cut something so achingly soulful that the stills almost came to life. And then Pollard's editing credit came up.
He also seems to bring out Spike's sense of mischief (see certain funny juxtapositions in Mo Better and 4 Little Girls). I wonder how he would have handled Spike's (imo) funniest, weirdest film, Jim Brown: All-American.
I wonder how he would have handled Spike's (imo) funniest, weirdest film, Jim Brown: All-American.
That would have been interesting. Whenever I think of Jim Brown, I think of Richard Pryor's routines about him. I also think about I'm Gonna Git You Sucka when he gets shot in the foot. "If you step on my bunions, I'll kill ya!"
Jim Brown: Wife Beata, I mean All American made me wonder if Brown threatened to beat the shit out of Lee if he put anything bad about him in it. He'd tackle Spike and it would feel like 40 acres and a mule fell on his ass.
Speaking of Spike getting the shit beaten out of him, haters of Mr. Lee can see Dickerson and Pollard's work on the scene where his Mo Better Blues character gets a really good beat down by a pre-Snakes on a Plane Sam Jackson.
Mo' Better is lovely, though I've always wished the last half-hour were twice as long, and everything before it half—the story of how a man learns to live without the thing he lived for is much more compelling, imho, than the more conventional musician with girlfriend problems.
And yes, Sucker Free City is underrated—it's obviously unfinished (it really shows that it was a pilot), but it has a lot of great material, and some really original takes on its subject matter (thrilling to see a gangster story about black and Chinese gangsters, with nary an Italian in sight).
Also underrated, though, is Spike Lee's women. In fact, I think one of the big shifts in Lee's career was his gradual deepening of his female characters, in response to a lack I think he was well aware of. Remember, he did first appear with a movie about a woman (though in a story with some way questionable gender politics). And his mid-career films, particularly Summer of Sam and Crooklyn, have displayed ever-increasing sensitivity and awareness of women's perspectives. Even the interesting but completely failed Girl 6 showed a very male filmmaker trying really, really hard to Get It. She Hate Me was a huge and horrifying step backwards, but its worth noting that it was a movie where he did go out of his way to bring in female consultants, indicating that he was at least trying.
Odie: A belated you stupid for the Jim Brown 40 Acres comment. I was rolling. Imagining JB putting on his old Syracuse gear and charging poor Spike at 70mph. Or an avalanche of dirt and one mule falling from the sky.
fuzzy bastard: Intriguing double take on Spike's women. He does seem to attempt a broader perspective in Mo Better, though there's always some degree of vicarious dick-swinging in his treatment of black man-woman relationships.
Slight detour: Light-skinned black women and white women tend to fog up Spike's lens. He has a morbid obsession with mulattos, blondes and slutty white chicks that's as intense as Quentin Tarantino's thing for Pam Grier and Uma Thurman's feet. They should have collaborated on a remake of Ghetto Freaks long ago.