From humble beginnings, filmmaker Spike Lee made quite the impact on modern day cinema and pop culture with his early realistic black focused dramedies. In 1986 of all years, the young filmmaker and his team of artists had a smash hit with a low budget B&W flick known as She's Gotta Have It, which won the award of the youth foreign film at the Cannes Film Festival and kickstarted Lee's directorial career. As of now, the film has been deemed culturally and historically significant in the National Film Registry and even spawned a Netflix original series adaptation. So what's so special about this film after all?
The main scenario of the feature concerns a young woman named Nola Darling who simultaneously sees three men of different backgrounds and mentalities, thus causing tumultuous feelings that such an arrangement would provoke. From that perspective of a woman desiring more than just one simple relationship, the film's biggest strength lies in the conflicts between Nola and her lovers. All three of them are completely different in personality, such as Jamie Overstreet being a well-intentioned mensch, Greer Childs being a self obsessed model and Mars Blackmon being an immature foul mouth. All three of them have pros and cons that could make or break a relationship, not to mention Nola's own insecurities, and the stress that befalls them and Nola to juggle their feelings is all the more turbulent and relatable. Add on to the natural performances of Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell and Lee himself and you've got yourself such a fascinating cast of characters worth sympathizing with as far as complicated relationships go.
Because Nola's mentality lies within the freedom to have multiple sexual partners as her own woman, she is a shockingly strong representation of the struggle African American women faced at the time of the film's release. Perhaps some of the sexual politics within the feature have not held up tremendously, such as Mars's ideas of pleasure and how the film treats it's only gay character Opal Gilstrap as a concept than a fully realized individual, but the way Nola chooses to go about life is beyond brave and noble for what could've lay ahead of her. In her mind, monogamy is a choice rather than a demand, which both reinforces Nola's personal agency and independence and also turns off the pleasure and trust from Jamie, Greed and Mars individually. Given that the film's lower New York city neighborhood is meant to be a public space that informs the characters and the community they live in as a whole, She's Gotta Have It nails it's complicated message in a realistic scenario that entangles how some perceive race, sex, boundaries and class through different backgrounds.
Now being that the film was made on a micro $175,000 budget and was shot in just two weeks, the limitations actually give the film its own identity. While there are some weird flashy cuts every now and then, the overall editing feels very natural to what you would find in a documentary, with the characters introducing themselves, sharing their beliefs, and then an immediate cut to the scenario that occurred. The black & white cinematography by Ernest Dickerson gives a lot of personality to an otherwise down to earth dramedy with a lot of pressure and heartbreak, therefore coming off as appropriate for the rocky tone. It also allows the filmmakers to take special advantage of the apartment settings, making the viewers feel a part of the spacial interior as much as our lead characters. In an effort to portray the Fort Greene neighborhood as a vibrant cosmopolitan community, complete with thriving graffiti and residential everymen, the comfort within the filmmaking lies in the public spaces that breathe as much life into themselves as Lee did with miniscule funds.
As a groundbreaking low budget dramedy, She's Gotta Have It marks as one of the finer directorial debuts from the New York side of filmmaking, at least for its time. Thanks to a lot of highly relatable personas, believable acting and comforting low scaled filmmaking, there's enough worth checking out in this film from anyone. If you're interested in checking out films that tackle the struggles in multiple relationships or you're getting into Lee's filmography, this is definitely a good place to start. As the film that launched a risky filmmaker's career into new heights, there's many reasons to admire its setbacks and triumphs.
The main scenario of the feature concerns a young woman named Nola Darling who simultaneously sees three men of different backgrounds and mentalities, thus causing tumultuous feelings that such an arrangement would provoke. From that perspective of a woman desiring more than just one simple relationship, the film's biggest strength lies in the conflicts between Nola and her lovers. All three of them are completely different in personality, such as Jamie Overstreet being a well-intentioned mensch, Greer Childs being a self obsessed model and Mars Blackmon being an immature foul mouth. All three of them have pros and cons that could make or break a relationship, not to mention Nola's own insecurities, and the stress that befalls them and Nola to juggle their feelings is all the more turbulent and relatable. Add on to the natural performances of Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell and Lee himself and you've got yourself such a fascinating cast of characters worth sympathizing with as far as complicated relationships go.
Because Nola's mentality lies within the freedom to have multiple sexual partners as her own woman, she is a shockingly strong representation of the struggle African American women faced at the time of the film's release. Perhaps some of the sexual politics within the feature have not held up tremendously, such as Mars's ideas of pleasure and how the film treats it's only gay character Opal Gilstrap as a concept than a fully realized individual, but the way Nola chooses to go about life is beyond brave and noble for what could've lay ahead of her. In her mind, monogamy is a choice rather than a demand, which both reinforces Nola's personal agency and independence and also turns off the pleasure and trust from Jamie, Greed and Mars individually. Given that the film's lower New York city neighborhood is meant to be a public space that informs the characters and the community they live in as a whole, She's Gotta Have It nails it's complicated message in a realistic scenario that entangles how some perceive race, sex, boundaries and class through different backgrounds.
Now being that the film was made on a micro $175,000 budget and was shot in just two weeks, the limitations actually give the film its own identity. While there are some weird flashy cuts every now and then, the overall editing feels very natural to what you would find in a documentary, with the characters introducing themselves, sharing their beliefs, and then an immediate cut to the scenario that occurred. The black & white cinematography by Ernest Dickerson gives a lot of personality to an otherwise down to earth dramedy with a lot of pressure and heartbreak, therefore coming off as appropriate for the rocky tone. It also allows the filmmakers to take special advantage of the apartment settings, making the viewers feel a part of the spacial interior as much as our lead characters. In an effort to portray the Fort Greene neighborhood as a vibrant cosmopolitan community, complete with thriving graffiti and residential everymen, the comfort within the filmmaking lies in the public spaces that breathe as much life into themselves as Lee did with miniscule funds.
As a groundbreaking low budget dramedy, She's Gotta Have It marks as one of the finer directorial debuts from the New York side of filmmaking, at least for its time. Thanks to a lot of highly relatable personas, believable acting and comforting low scaled filmmaking, there's enough worth checking out in this film from anyone. If you're interested in checking out films that tackle the struggles in multiple relationships or you're getting into Lee's filmography, this is definitely a good place to start. As the film that launched a risky filmmaker's career into new heights, there's many reasons to admire its setbacks and triumphs.