Thoughts on the film so far

Jack Bradley

Professor Young

ENGW 1101

5 February 2018

Thoughts on the film so far

In class we have been watching Do the Right Thing, and I really like it so far. I’m not a big fan of reading, but I kind of enjoyed reading the script of Do the Right Thing; I really got dragged into it. Even though I enjoyed reading it, I found it hard at times to keep track of where the story was and what characters were in and out of each scene because the setting changed pretty often in the film. Another thing that you can do while reading is try to figure out what type of personality a character has, and then you can attempt to visualize how they act, how they say things, and how they look; however, everyone could visualize each character differently. The film is very helpful to me because it puts a name to a face, attitude, etc, and it even helps you understand each scene better by knowing exactly how the characters act. An example of this for me would be Radio Raheem. Through reading the script I thought Radio Raheem was going to be more of a punk, he doesn’t talk as much as some of the characters, but I started to get that sense through his actions. These actions included walking into Sal’s while blasting his boombox, when he was in the “standoff” with Stevie and the Puerto Ricans when they both kept turning up their music, etc. While I read these things in the script I started to visualize Radio Raheem as a punk who wore older clothes, maybe pants sagging, someone who didn’t have respect for anyone or anything, etc, but as I found out in the film, Radio Raheem seems to be kind of laid back, pretty friendly, and dresses pretty nicely. Furthermore, there were some scenes for me that were either hard to visualize in my mind or details that I didn’t pick up on while reading, but that are very well presented in the film. An example of this would be the scene when they open up the fire hydrant and start playing and splashing around in the water to cool off. I could actually visualize this scene pretty well while reading the script, but what confused me was how they got the water to spray upwards. The detail that I didn’t pick up on while I was reading the script was that Cee and Punchy scraped cans against the sidewalk which they then used to put over the open fire hydrant to direct the water into giant streams. Ultimately, I’m really enjoying the film so far because I enjoyed reading the script and just the different stories and scenes that take place and it helps give me a better understanding of the characters and what is happening.

Who did the right thing?

Jack Bradley
English 1100
1-29-2018
Professor Young

Who Did The Right Thing?

In Do The Right Thing by Spike Lee there were a lot of scenes in which doing the right thing was in question. On the other hand, there were some examples of characters who were doing the right thing. I found a couple examples where a character did the right thing, but there were two characters in particular who maybe didn’t do the right thing throughout the whole script, but in  big moments stepped up to do the right thing. The two characters that I believe did the right thing in important moments in the script were Sal and Da Mayor. Sal had many points throughout the script where I thought there’s no way he’s doing the right thing or I questioned whether he did the right thing or not, but there are two examples that I believe can be connected to each other that showed that Sal was trying to do the right thing. On pages 49-50 there is the scene where Pino complains to his father Sal that he got made fun of by his friends, and during that exchange Sal says, “I’ve never had no trouble with dese people, don’t want none either, so don’t start none”(Pg 50). Then, at the end of the script after the riot and Sal’s pizzeria was burned down, Mookie comes back to Sal’s to ask Sal for his pay, and Sal yells, argues, and curses Mookie out, but in the end he gives Mookie twice what he owed him because he in some ways liked Mookie and like he said back on page 50, he never had no trouble with the people, and he didn’t want any either. I think that for the situation Sal was in, this was doing the right thing. The second character that I thought did the right thing throughout the script was Da Mayor. I think people get the wrong idea about Da Mayor because he was called a drunk and a bum throughout the script, but I believe that he did the right thing pretty much throughout the whole film. Even though Mother Sister hated him he would always try to talk to her and be nice to her which shows when he brought her the flowers. Da Mayor also saved Eddie from being hit by a car, tried to prevent the angry mob from burning down Sal’s or doing anything stupid, and even chased after Mother Sister and Jade after they were blown down the street when they were hit by the fire hose. Da Mayor may have been a drunk, but he had a tough life and all he did was try to do the right thing throughout regardless of how the people around him thought of him. It would be hard to question anything Da Mayor did as not doing the right thing.