Trainspotting:Key scene analysis

Spike Lee films comparison

Most of Spike Lee’s films are used as a way of either looking at social issues, or the position of different people in society; even though in some of his films it is not made as clear. Do the right thing is a film that is explicitly used as a way of exploring the racial tension in American society during the 1980s, whereas Crooklyn focuses more on the family unit. Both of these films are different to 25^th Hour, since it is not exactly clear straight away which social issue that Lee is trying to explore in it. A lot of Spike Lee’s earlier films follow the story of a young African American having to work his or her way through a struggle in a sense. After a while critics started to draw attention to the fact that most of his films were quite similar, in either the social issue they are exploring or the cinematography used. So, during the late 90s and early 2000s Lee began to work on films that were different to the films that he was used to producing and directing; 25^th Hour being one of them.

25^th Hour explores the consequences of being so motivated that anything would be done ensure that is possessed. When Monty (the main character) is in the toilet of the pub he sees that somebody had scratched in the mirror the words “fuck you”. From this Monty goes on a rant, starting each off his sentences with “fuck you..” to each of different demographics in New York city. In this scene, the shot changes each and every time that a different type of person is mentioned. Also, something that I noticed was who when he switched his rant to a different type of person the camera started to focus on something associated with them, e.g. the camera focuses on the fruits when he is talking about the Korean grocers. This is very similar to the race rant scene in Do The Right Thing in the way that animosity is presented as a result of both misunderstanding and just plain ignorance. It is different however because in the race rant scene in Do The Right Thing we see the angered from different perspectives, however in 25^th Hour we only the get to the opinion from the point of view of Monty.

One theme that Lee seems to explore through his films is relationships. In Do The Right Thing up until the end we notice that Mookie is very detached from his friends. At the beginning of the film when one of Mookie’s friends asks him why there are no black people on the hall of fame he simply responds, “I don’t know, ask Sal”. This shows that his very dismissive of what his friend has not say and may be suggesting that he does not hold an interest in minor acts of racism and is more affected by more serious issues, such as the death of Radio Raheem later on during the film. The theme of relationships is also explored in Crooklyn, through the character of Troy. During the beginning of the film we see that Troy is sort of out of place in her household. It is a combination of being caught between her parents that are going through conflict and her four brothers. Because of this we see Troy doing things that seem not to fit with her character e.g. stealing from the groceries store and stealing her brother’s basketball tickets and special edition coins. Throughout the film the only person that we see Troy connect with on that level is Monica, her cousin. This connection seems to be due the fact that they are of a similar age group and are both girl, meaning that they probably have a better understanding of each other.  In 25^th Hour friendship is one of the key themes that runs through the film. One of the most famous line from this film is “Champagne for my real friends, and real pain for my sham friends”. This line in response to the fact that the most important people to Monty are his friends, however the actual reason why he is going to prison is because of the fact that somebody that he considered to be a friend broke his trust.