NFL
By: Matt Overton
The Fourth Joint
Mo’ Better Blues was the first collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Somewhat surprisingly, in Spike’s decades-spanning career, he has only featured Denzel in four of his films, with Highest 2 Lowest being their fifth and possibly final project together. I could whine about this for a while, but instead, I’ll focus on the positives: Spike/Denzel make an incredible artistic duo, and the result of their partnership in this film was electric.
Bleek Gilliam (Washington) is a gifted trumpet player who has a complicated relationship with the instrument, his two girlfriends, his manager Giant (Lee), and pretty much everything else in his life. He packs a Brooklyn jazz club on the regular, but is not seeing any of the money rolling in because of the shrewd club owners. His fellow bandmates include Wesley Snipes on the saxophone, Bill Nunn on the bass, Jeff Watts on drums, and Giancarlo Esposito on the piano. The dynamic between these gentlemen is outrageous and hilarious. There is the petty beef between egos, drama over breaking band rules, girlfriends intruding on band time, and a whole lot of other personable items that made all of these characters feel very real.
Bleek gets tied up in a lot of drama, and we watch as he pretty much makes the wrong decision at every turn, making his life ever more difficult. The trajectory and pacing of Mo’’ Better Blues is reminiscent of a number of Scorsese pictures, which checks out considering the relationship Lee and Scorsese have had over the years. This film is much more optimistic than anything you’d find in Marty’s filmography, but having such lived-in characters wrapped up in an emotional and engrossing story, featuring kinetic direction and rocket pacing, is just as enjoyable coming from Lee as it is coming from Scorsese.
As much as Lee teases some musical elements in these earlier films, I’ve yet to be disappointed by any of them. The color dance number in She’s Gotta Have It, the barbershop dance off in School Daze, and the multiple full jazz numbers in this movie. The whole movie is clearly coming from a place of deep love and respect for jazz. Props to Lee for creating such a beautiful love letter to the art and making it so visually stunning. There’s a great use of lighting and shadows, and lots of sequences with exciting camerawork. Anytime Bleek was up on that stage, I was leaning in; everything he was performing was absolute heat.
I’m losing some of the impact of watching Lee’s filmography in complete order because I skipped over Do the Right Thing since I just watched it a month ago, but it’s incredible that he followed that up with Mo’’ Better Blues. This doesn’t quite reach the same echelon of Do the Right Thing, but it comes damn close. This is a touching portrait of jazz and the beauty of the genre, and it also has an incredible cast of characters. They are so fun to watch, especially when they get messy. Mo’ Better Blues is full of exciting drama, serious stakes, genuine romance, and an awesome Washington performance.
I believe Spike Lee prides himself on making “real” movies. Real in every sense of the word, but also in terms of authenticity. As in when the story calls for pregnancy and childbirth, there is going to be a need to film an actual birth and include it unfiltered in the edit. I am guilty as can be and can admit that I’ve become accustomed to seeing the most graphic violence in my movies, but seeing full frontal childbirth was not something I was prepared for.
