Summer of Sam ***
Rated on a 4-star scale; Screening venue - Odeon (Liverpool City Centre);
Released in the UK by Buena Vista International on 14 January, 1999;
certificate 18; 136 minutes; country of origin USA; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Spike Lee; produced by Jon Kilik, Spike Lee.
Written by Victor Colicchio, Michael Imperioli, Spike Lee.
Photographed by Ellen Kuras; edited by Barry Alexander Brown.
CAST.....
John Leguizamo..... Vinny
Adrien Brody..... Ritchie
Mira Sorvino..... Dionna
Jennifer Esposito..... Ruby
Michael Rispoli..... Joey T
Saverio Guerra..... Woodstock
Brian Tarantino..... Bobby Del Fiore
Ben Gazzara..... Luigi
It's exciting to own a camera; you can look through your viewfinder and
comfortably mould life into perfect little rectangular artworks. Click on a
button, and you've preserved a moment of reality. Cine cameras are even
better; you've got the means to capture situations in more depth, and hey,
you're making movies!
The filmmaker Spike Lee got his first cine camera in the Summer of 1977, and
the imagination of the gifted young New Yorker must have been running wild.
He must have done a lot of dreaming at that time, a lot of playing with his
camera, and a lot of important thinking. I'll bet he remembers it well.
Lee's new film "Summer of Sam" is about that summer in his city, and takes a
lot of time to illustrate the atmosphere. This was the strange, short time
when disco and punk music were concurrently successful. When the Yankees had
Reggie Jackson, and were winning the World Series. And when a serial killer
dubbed 'Son of Sam' was terrorising the Bronx.
'Sam', eventually identified as a crazy mailman named David Berkowitz,
stalked brunette women, or however they were with, and blew their heads off
with a .44-caliber pistol. He sent creepy letters about his motives to the
police, and to newspaper columnist Jimmy Breslin; his case made front-page
news every day; and he was as hot a topic of conversation as the sun, music
or baseball.
Among those discussing 'Sam' are Lee's main characters, a bunch of
Italian-American guys who hang out on a street corner all day, letting
boredom and poverty lead them into talking a lot of crap. Vinny (John
Leguizamo) is a chain-smoking, disco-dancing hairdresser who can't help but
cheat on his wife Dionna (Mira Sorvino). His best friend Ritchie (Adrien
Brody) is losing popularity in the neighbourhood, because of his punk
hairstyle and his romance with Ruby (Jennifer Esposito), the local slut. Joey
T (Michael Rispoli), a drug dealer, and his goon Bobby (Brian Tarantino),
slouch back and watch everything through arrogant eyes, convinced that
they're better than all the scum out there, and that they'd kick the crap out
of anyone who wants to try them.
Lee plunges into this community and lingers around to see if any themes
emerge. "Summer of Sam" is partly recollection, and partly a daydream about
how elements of summer '77 could have driven people crazy. We get chilling
glimpses into the apartment of Berkowitz himself, witness the tension and
ignorance of our guys lead to the feeling that someone in their neighbourhood
MUST be 'Son of Sam', and watch the lynch mob find its justifications for
singling out an innocent culprit because he is different from the crowd.
"Summer of Sam" displays much fast cutting, grainy nostalgic footage and
fancy tricks with lighting and loud music; like most of Lee's work, it's a
visually and aurally engulfing film. As emotions get tenser, the temperature
gets hotter, Sam takes more victims and people take too many ludes, Lee ups
the film's pace, volume and reliance on close-ups, leading us into some
frightening scenes of vigilante scapegoating.
The film is so involving because it seems to be a dance around Lee's memory
and imagination. Yes, it falls far short of greatness because it's not really
about all the themes that it brings up. But Lee has already made one strongly
plotted examination of the way a community can be pushed over the edge in
summertime, with his 1989 masterpiece "Do the Right Thing". Here he's trying
something new. Good on him.
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
Please visit, and encourage others to visit, The UK Critic's website, located
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