18 years have passed since the last collaboration between Spike Lee and Denzel Washington, and Highest 2 Lowest It is his fifth work in common. Lee may not discover Washington, but of course he has given him some of his best characters. In the film’s presentation press conference this Tuesday at the Cannes Festival, Lee (Atlanta, 68 years old) recalled: “When we started roll we think: ‘How? Has 18 years have passed?’
And Highest 2 Lowest, The actor plays David King, a veteran music tycoon, “the best ears of the industry”, on a key day of his career in which he will hit his board in his board of directors to recover control of his company. He will not reach the Council: they have kidnapped his son, a teenager who spends summer on a basketball campus next to the King driver’s son. The following hours will become territory paid for doubts (the kidnappers have been wrong of kid), fear and brutal images of New York, in which Lee gives his best. The director has managed to rework the original material – it is based on a thriller Akira Kurosawa classic, Hell of Hate (1963), in which Toshiro Mifune gave life to the protagonist, a manager of a footwear company – giving another flight to the characters: the driver here, for example, is not a meek guy, but Jeffrey Wright – who also participates in this contest with The Phoenician plot– He gives his own force. There are no classes, but class awareness. “For me, Kurosawa has always been a reference. I remind you that Nora Darling (She’s Gotta Have It) It was based on Rashomon “, Remember Lee.
Lee was more care than sometimes preceding his references to Donald Trump, who is usually referred to as “the orange agent”, and when asked about the tariffs announced by the president for filming outside the US, he replied: “The guy says he will put taxes to all films … People have lost their work in New York and Los Angeles, the tariffs are not going to work. The filming in those cities.
And returning to the social problems that he points Highest 2 Lowestthe filmmaker turned to his own film: “There is a phrase in the movie that we have used in the poster: ‘Not all money is good money.’ We have to be clear about what we do and how we do it. In Kurosawa’s film was that great moral dilemma that we have tried to move to the present. We are forgetting the important thing, the essential.”
About his presence in Cannes, where he has brought many of his films since Do what you owe, The filmmaker has praised the atmosphere of the festival and the possibility that Denzel Washington had given him the previous night, who received a gold palm of honor. Washington has not become two days on the Costa Azul: he took advantage of Monday’s theater on Broadway, where he is representing Othello, With Jake Gyllenhaal, to fly, pose before the photographers, attend the gala, receive the tribute and shoot back to New York. “The truth is that I don’t remember our first working day together. He has always been there. When Danny Aiello was an Oscar candidate with Do what you owe, We saw together Glory times, And at the time Denzel drops a tear silently, I looked at Danny and said: ‘It’s over, the Oscar is for him.’ And so it was. “Then Washington joined Lee’s tribe.” I don’t want to be disrespectful with my brother to Pacino, but Denzel Washington should have won the Oscar for Malcolm X. I don’t know if we will repeat, because he is already talking about retreat. ”
In the film at different times it reflects on current addiction to mobile phones and perennial attention to social networks. Are American networks committing American values? “I don’t know how we can talk about American values considering who the president is … My wife warned me that I was very careful with what I said (laughs). Actually, I return to your question, I do not want to blame the tool, but how we use it.”
Highest 2 Lowest It houses numerous references to basketball. Lee, who wore a New York Knicks cap and shirt, He has pointed to a rapid victory of his team in the final of the Eastern Conference against Indiana Pacers. “I am here, I love him, but I miss the first two games (and my head messped).” And after refusing to be the best director who has portrayed New York, a flato who even stressed his actor Jeffrey Wright, (“By God, Martin Scorsese! It’s Marty!”, Lee shouted) and release a couple of spirits to his Knicks, Lee got up happy and left. He had pronounced only a couple of “fuck” and had not gotten into political jellys.