Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to cinapse.twocents@gmail.com.
The Pick: Mo’ Better Blues (1990)
We’re making our way through all of Spike Lee and Denzel Washington’s collaborations this month in celebration of their 5th and upcoming collaboration: Akira Kurosawa remake Highest 2 Lowest. One of the boldest and brightest American filmmaking voices of our generation, who has proven to be quite prolific and multi-talented, Spike Lee is a filmmaking force that can’t be ignored. And when he teams up with one of the greatest movie stars of our time or any other in Denzel Washington, cinephiles must take note.
Here we begin with their first collaboration, Mo’ Better Blues, from 1990, where they collaborate in front of the camera as well as behind, and where an impossibly young Denzel Washington continues to cement his rise to arguable GOAT status.
There’s nothing wrong with simply hanging around with Bleek.
I was pulled in by, and quite enjoyed, Mo’ Better Blues, the first Spike Lee and Denzel Washington collaboration, which came along in 1990. It turned out I absolutely had seen the film before, despite thinking this was going to be a first time watch. I don’t think it’s a searing masterwork ala Malcolm X (next week’s film), or Do The Right Thing. But I do think it builds a compelling world of jazz players and acolytes dealing with relevant human issues contemporary to that time.
Denzel’s Bleek is kind of an asshole. Or, in the film’s language, a “dog”. He’s got two girlfriends and no plans to change that, figuring that as long as they both know their place, which is secondary to his music, and certainly not exclusive, then all is well. Then there’s his band, with management conflicts swirling around his boyhood friend Giant (Lee), and locking horns with his lead sax player Shadow (Wesley Snipes). It’s not particularly a plot heavy movie, as we follow Bleek from one gig to the next, and one sexual encounter to the next. We learn a lot about this man, highly talented, self-centered, but magnetic none the less. The film itself, also written by Lee, might have really floundered if it simply chose to idol worship this beautiful, talented, cocky jazz phenom.
But instead, simply hanging around with Bleek does ultimately build to a climactic and tragic event that will cut Bleek down low. And it’s the best thing that could have ever happened to him. We see how Bleek’s bravado didn’t mean a whole lot when his music can no longer be his idol, and he must turn to friends and family for redemption and meaning where he offered none before. Through gigs, and power struggles, sexual liaisons, and bookie beatdowns, Lee builds a smooth and cool world to hang out in and learn a few things about where our priorities need to be, and I appreciated the smoke filled cool of this slice of hang out cinema.
There is a striking tension in Spike Lee’s “joints.”
On the one hand, he is one of the most playful masters of using the tools available to him in film. He twists and spins the camera, uses dollies with wild abandon, and does everything he can to make the viewer aware of the artifice of films. He whips around his subject with such glee that you can feel him almost snickering about how cool everything looks. In Mo’ Better Blues he seems especially interested in exploring how to fill the screen with color, using bright shades of red and blue to create ethereal, moody atmospheres that seem to match the overall inner exploration his characters are going through.
On the other hand, his films always have an unassuming veritas quality to them. The way that dialogue bounces back and forth, the way scenes begin and end whenever the moment calls. The scattered, staccato dialogue that overlaps. He is taking the sort of jumbled, crowded frame that made Altman feel so revolutionary, but then centering it in spaces that had historically been unrepresented. He seems enamored in capturing the way Black people, especially Black men communicate when they are in their own spaces. Even as he is always winking at you that the images themselves are a creation.
It helps when he surrounds himself with excellent casts. Denzel Washington is clearly a partner he luxuriates in using, but he also gives plenty of space to shine for Wesley Snipes and especially Giancarlo Esposito as members of Bleek’s band. The way their conversations bounce back and forth really captures a sort of tension and camaraderie that feels genuine and heartfelt. These guys love each other, hate each other, hate that they love each other, and love that they hate each other.
At its heart, Mo’ Better Blues is concerned with topics that will continue to trace throughout Lee’s career: men determining what it is to be a man, balancing making rational choices that will ground them against the grand ambition they feel bubbling up. Despite Lee himself playing the constantly put upon Giant, he clearly feels a kinship to Bleek, someone who has wrapped their identity up entirely in their craft and seeks to determine a means of existing outside of his art. He keeps love at arm’s length, projects himself as being above such creature comforts. But when he has his protective armor stripped away, he discovers what he actually needs.
Not everything in the film works. The Toturro brothers playing very broad Jewish stereotypes always feels like it goes on for a minute longer than it needs to, and there are long stretches of the movie that can begin to feel aimless. It also seems odd that the film is set in then contemporary 1990, when the plot (jazz musician finds himself pulled into his manager’s shaky gambling problems) feels better suited to a period piece, down to the costuming choices made throughout. But when the film finds that pocket of a laid back hang, it still feels pretty special, and is a remarkable first collaboration between Washington and Lee.
While viewing Mo Better Blues, a particular phrase from elsewhere in cinema popped into my head and kind of stayed there:
Koyaanisqatsi. Life out of balance.
Denzel’s Bleek is a brilliant jazz frontman, and seems like an OK guy all around, but he’s living a life out of balance, trying to juggle pressures from his band, his manager, his contractual employers, and most of all his two girlfriends, with whom he shares relationships that he strives to keep focused on sex rather than love. Unable to choose or commit, he lives two lies, attempting to keep each of them a secret from the other. It’s an untenable situation, and it seems only a matter of time before Bleek’s choices and indecisions will catch up to him.
But where Mo Betta Blues surprised me most, and elevated it above what I thought it was about, was its denouement: an unexpected measure of grace afforded to a lowly sinner who deserved less, summed up in a quote from John Coltrane stating the shared theme of his own masterwork, A Love Supreme.
In honor of their latest collaboration, Highest 2 Lowest, the Cinapse team is celebrating one of American Cinema’s greatest collaborative teams: Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. Join us by contacting our team or emailing cinapse.twocents@gmail.com, and be sure to catch Highest 2 Lowest in theaters August 22nd from A24 and Apple!
