After the Sundance premiere last night of Spike Lee’s low-budget indie movie “Red Hook Summer,” the New York director went on an expletive-laced, self-described “tirade” during a Q&A after the film’s screening.
Lee took the stage at the 1,200-seat Eccles Theatre in an ebullient mood yelling, “Is Brooklyn in the house,” and, “New York Giants! Going to the Super Bowl!” But the director was soon seemingly set off by a question from a VIP audience member, Chris Rock.
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Rock asked Lee about self-financing the film, saying, “You spent your own money… What would you have done differently if you’d actually gotten… studio money? What else would have happened? Would you have blown up some [bleep]?”
Lee then went off on a heated response, according to film-goers, pointing to Rock and saying, “We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we’re gonna do this mother[bleeping] film ourselves. I didn’t need a mother[bleeping] studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people! Nothing!” He added, “And they’re gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? [Bleep] no!”
“Red Hook Summer” follows a boy whose mother sends him from Atlanta to Red Hook, Brooklyn, to spend the summer with his strict grandfather, a Bible-thumping preacher he’s never met.
Lee also told the crowd, “You are the very first audience that has seen this film. Do me a favor. If you go out and talk about it, please tell them this is not a mother[bleeping] sequel to ‘Do the Right Thing.'”
Lee also took a swipe at Universal, the studio that made his biggest commercial success, “Inside Man,” in 2006, starring Denzel Washington and Clive Owen. “I’m now waiting for Universal to do the sequel to ‘Inside Man,’ my biggest hit ever,” he groused. “I can’t wait anymore.”
Reports described Lee as appearing “furious” on stage and “screaming at the top of his lungs” at the audience. He later said, “Sorry for that mother[bleeping] tirade” and “my wife is looking at me like I’m crazy.”
Lee’s movie sharply divided Sundance critics who Tweeted during the Q&A. One Salon critic called it, “a passionate, painful love letter to Brooklyn,” while another writer from ComingSoon.net tweeted, “one of the worst movies to ever premiere at #sundance.”