Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
“The wine was drunk,
And the Two Cents was strunk!”
Controversial from the moment its title was revealed, through filming, and all the way up to its theatrical release, Spike Lee’s incendiary update of the Greek comedy Lysistrata transplants that play’s war between the Spartans and Athenians to the modern streets of Chicago.
Chi-Raq maintains the ancient (we’re talking pre-Christ ancient) play’s rhyming scheme and narrative thrust (in which the women of two competing armies withhold sex from their men to spur peace talks) but folds in Lee and co-writer Kevin Willmott (creator of previous Two Cents entry, CSA: The Confederate States of America)’s thoughts about race relations in America, America’s history of racial strife, black-on-black violence, gender roles, masculinity, etc.
And if that wasn’t enough, Spike Lee brought out every single move he knows from his (impressively deep) bag of cinematic tricks, crafting a hyper-stylized epic that allows room for both uncomfortable, sustained moments of grueling emotional trauma and also musical numbers. Multiple musical numbers.
Lee is supported by an all-star cast including Mad Men‘s Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata, Samuel L. Jackson as a fourth-wall demolishing narrator, John Cusack, Nick Cannon, Wesley Snipes (with a sequined eye-patch!), Jennifer Hudson, and goddess Angela Bassett, as well as cameos by the likes of Dave Chappelle and Isiah Whitlock Jr (who somehow manages to out “SHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-IT” his character on The Wire. If you’ve seen The Wire you know that this is a staggering achievement).
Does this concoction of outrageous social polemic and gleeful cinematic style work, or did one of America’s foremost provocateurs crank things so far past eleven that the speakers burst?
Find out what the Two Cents team, and our guests, had to say on the matter below.
Did you get a chance to watch along with us this week? Want to recommend a great (or not so great) film for the whole gang to cover? Comment below or post on our Facebook or hit us up on Twitter!
Next Week’s Pick:
Thanks to Michael Bay, the modern mass-audience conception of science fiction has a lot to do with lasers, robots, punching, and punching robots with lasers (Sidenote: This may not be exclusively Michael Bay’s fault, but fuck that guy we’re blaming him anyway).
But with the increasing democratization of filmmaking technology, we are also seeing an explosion of independent sci-fi films, films which use genre narrative as a launching point to engage with timeless questions about the human animal and our relationship to the world around us.
Advantageous won a Special Jury Prize at Sundance, the debut feature of acclaimed short-film director Jennifer Phang. Next week, the Two Cents team and interested guests will dive into this idiosyncratic vision of the near-future.
Advantageous is currently streaming on Netflix.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co!
Featured Guest
It is our great pleasure to feature thoughts from Zachary Thomas Ingle, Ph.D., Film and Media Studies at the University of Kansas. As you will read below, he has spent some time in the tutelage of Chi-Raq co-writer Kevin Willmott and can cast a bit of light on some of the influences on the film. Zach has written a great deal on a great number of films and genres, and you can give some of his phenomenal work a read HERE. He’s also authored and edited several books, some with previous Two Cents guest David Sutera; give them a look!
Zachary Ingle:
I should first say that Chi-Raq made my top ten list last year. A project long in gestation, I thought its script by Spike Lee and Kevin Willmott the best adapted screenplay of the year, yet it received no such nomination from any of the major awards bodies. This despite being named the best film of the year by a handful of prominent critics. Chi-Raq also felt like the most relevant film I have seen in some time, and I am reminded of a film that Willmott likes showing his students, Jules Dassin’s Uptight, which constantly references King’s assassination, even though it was released only months later. Sure, the film has its flaws (the scene between Lysistrata and the General at the armory arguably descends into Myra Breckinridge-esque camp), but this imperfect work is still the best film Lee has made since Malcolm X. I have had the privilege of working with Willmott at the University of Kansas, and two things I particularly noted: Willmott is currently teaching a blaxploitation course at KU, and the references to that oft-derided genre abound. Secondly, the film’s interest in history, since all of Willmott’s films so far have been period films, or deeply fascinated with an alternative history à la CSA. (Zach Ingle)
Our Guests
Jaime Burchardt:
A while back I confessed in a public forum that I wasn’t that familiar with the works of Spike Lee. I’ve only seen a handful of his movies, but to me the most intriguing thing about his filmography is how different they seem, as a collective. Having said that, I strongly feel that even after I watch all of his films (eventually), I’ll stand by this present-day statement that his latest effort, Chi-Raq, is one of the best films he’ll ever make. This is a masterpiece. The movie switches tones often, like it’s fitting in all of Lee’s traits, but the message never changes, It’s clear, and frighteningly relevant to our world today. The cinematography, script, editing, and the ensemble acting are fantastic, and it all comes together through the passion and creativity of Lee. I have to give props to Amazon Studios as well, for giving him the means to make this film through their first original production. I love this movie, so much. (@jaimeburchardt)
Trey Lawson:
Chi-Raq is Spike Lee’s most vital, powerful film in at least a decade. A striking blend of ancient Greek comedy, musical, and urban drama, Chi-Raq targets the cycle of violence and crime prevalent in the south side of Chicago. As in Lysistrata, the ancient Greek comedy that serves as source text, the women of the community band together to force peace through the withholding of sex. In tone and style, this combination of genres often creates an uncomfortable tension between fairly bawdy humor and deadly truth about life in one of America’s largest cities. The result is a deliberate theatricality that could prove difficult for viewers expecting a more naturalistic approach. Characters deliver heightened, almost Brechtian stylized performances, often speaking in rhyme and, in the case of Samuel L. Jackson’s Chorus-like Dolmedes, breaking the fourth wall to address the audience directly. Many of the characters are broadly drawn, verging on caricature (another holdover from the Greek source, which has even less plot than Lee’s adaptation), but the film walks a narrow line that carefully prevents the satire from making light of the tragic violence at the core of the situation. Only John Cusack as Father Mike Corridan seems a bit out of place. His scenes, especially the sermon in the middle of the film, while powerful, stop the film cold and serves primarily to make explicit a political message that was already subtextually apparent. In spite of that, the film works far more often than it doesn’t and is equal parts funny, upsetting, and politically/dramatically powerful — occasionally all at once. (@T_Lawson)
The Team
Justin:
My relationship to this film begins with the fact that I, as the brilliant thespian I am, have performed several scenes of Lysistrata. The role I portrayed was… wait for it… Lysistrata. Interestingly enough, at age 19, this was actually my fourth role wearing women’s clothing. Unfortunately, photographic evidence of only one of these roles remains.
Chi-Raq‘s Lysistrata is more attractive than I, which is good seeing as it’s much more believable that Teyonah Parris can effectively use sex as a weapon than I can. Her beauty, however, is far from her only asset, as she steals several scenes and holds her own throughout, delivering a strong performance. The rest of the cast also is strong and all deliver solid performances, with possibly the only exception being Wesley Snipes and his struggles to make the comedic moments work for his character. For the most part, the strength of the cast is unsurprising, though I was wary on Nick Cannon portraying a tough guy thug rapper initially.
Spike Lee is always highly ambitious, sometimes to a fault. In this partnering with Kevin Willmott, he hits more often than he misses. I intend to get deeper into it in the coming months. It really has a lot to think about and build upon. (@thepaintedman)
Alex:
You gotta love Spike Lee for being Spike Lee, and this is truer than ever in Chi-Raq, an essential, incendiary piece of cinema. The film isn’t afraid to take big swings, but for every moment as riveting as John Cusack’s furious sermon, there’s a big miss, like Lysistrata’s goofy seduction of a racist old military man.
However, thanks to Spike Lee’s unflappable confidence, these missteps are invigorating in their dedication. Even when you’re shaking your head, you can’t help but appreciate that he went for it. After all, this is a shamelessly ridiculous yet strongly opinionated film, set in a stylized world where a sex strike can have global implications, but also anchored in reality, namedropping Tamir Rice and the Charleston shootings.
And yet, there’s a reward to this dichotomy, almost as if Lee’s using a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Lee lays out blazing commentary on real-world events, but he cuts those bitter truths with a vivid, humorous cast and a wildly entertaining script delivered entirely in verse. The faces of real dead African-Americans are shown a number of times in this exaggerated fictional context, and that contrast is breathtaking every single time. (@AlexWilliamsdt)
Brendan:
Wow, what a movie. I am woefully underexperienced when it comes to Spike Lee and/or cock-centric Greek comedy, but Chi-Raq is an assault of cinematic technique, brandished by a master powered by righteous fury. It is a film that is somehow both celebratory (in its seemingly endless cascade of brilliant cinema and language) and tragic (in its lament of the world passed on, the world now, and the world that we can only dream of).
Not everything works, but how could it? Lee is aiming for roughly 800 targets simultaneously, so of course not everything clicks. Some of the cast just straight-up do not get the tone of whatever they are being asked for, and some points are hit with sledge-hammer redundancy.
None of that matters in the cumulative power of what Lee has built. With Teyonah Parris’ star-making turn on the one hand, and Samuel L. Jackson’s cackling swagger on the other, Chi-Raq is a marvel of the cinematic form, and will be inspiring activists and artists for years to come. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
Sharon:
I feel underqualified to discuss much of the subject matter or themes of Chi-Raq, being unfamiliar with the Aristophanes original, the type of neighborhood in which it’s set, and Spike Lee’s filmography in general. My colleagues above have already gone over some of the controversy, issues, and unique stylings of the film, so I’ll just say this: Sometimes confusing, sometimes brilliant, sad but surprisingly optimistic, it’s definitely worth a watch.
Knowing Nick Cannon primarily from Drumline, Mariah, and being vaguely aware he hosts some kind of reality show, he probably surprised me the most — I didn’t realize he had this kind of performance in him. Teyonah Parris as Lysistrata is a revelation; I’m pretty sure she’s some kind of goddess just hanging around on planet earth for the hell of it. And I’m redoubling my efforts on my #CaptainAngelaBassett campaign after seeing her in Chi-Raq. She and Jennifer Hudson had me in tears at the end. And last but not least, all the bonus points to whoever decided to have Samuel L. Jackson rhyme “Dolmedes” with “box of Wheaties.” I salute you. (@salsalissentio)
Austin:
Chi-Raq is dizzyingly bold, intensely creative, ferociously ambitious, and occasionally a scattershot mess. The film occupies a unique space between fiction and hyper-reality, a combination of Old World poetics, references to current events, and characters that exhibit both realistic and theatrically over-the-top behavior. It’s an atypical narrative that can’t be assessed or understood like most films, because it’s the message and concept that come first.
Tying in modern events to an ancient but crass Greek text was an inspired concept, emphasizing not only the timelessness of Lysistrata, but the idea that our struggles aren’t unique — there’s nothing new under the sun. It’ll be interesting to see how the ultra-current timeliness of the film places it historically, though I have a feeling it will remain relevant even after the specific references like “Dr. Ben Carson” have grown hazy.
Because of the high stylization and raunchy themes, this won’t be a film for everyone, and it reaches for so many different ideas that it’s sometimes unfocused as a result. I felt especially let down by the weird resolution that dumbs down everything the film sets out to do in the first place, emphasizing sweeping government action and a staggering misunderstanding of basic economic principles (You’ll all be given jobs and they won’t be minimum wage!). Thankfully this is quickly followed by a more potent message about personal responsibility, capping off on the right note. (@VforVashaw)
Did you all get a chance to watch along with us? Share your thoughts with us here in the comments or on Twitter or Facebook!