#joie lee

[keyszn]

[elvyh]

From a few years ago. I still kinda like how they turned out though :)

[sleepynegress]

Joie Lee in Mo' Better Blues

[lobbycards]

Mo' Better Blues, French lobby card. 1990 Submitted by @videorecord

[lobbycards]

Mo' Better Blues, French lobby card. 1990 Submitted by @videorecord

[lobbycards]

Mo' Better Blues, French lobby card. 1990 Submitted by @videorecord

[thatrickmcginnis]

SPIKE LEE, NYC July 1990

I was flown to NYC to photograph Spike Lee for the cover of NOW, at a press junket for his fourth film, Mo’ Better Blues. It was the summer of 1990 and I was still buzzing about having a job that flew me to other cities for work. (To be honest I never got over that thrill.) There was a lot of anticipation about Lee’s new film; Do The Right Thing had been a sensation the year before, and the new film cast Denzel Washington as a trumpet player, and set in the world of jazz musicians – something the director knew about as the son of a well-known New York jazz bassist. It was all very exciting, and I was desperate to do a good job.

Spike Lee was born in 1957 to Bill Lee, a jazz bassist, and Jacqueline, a teacher, the oldest of six children. He made his first film, She’s Gotta Have It, in 1985, for just $175,000, but it was the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989 that made Lee’s reputation as both a creative and political filmmaker. With its soundtrack by Public Enemy and a cast that included Giancarlo Esposito, John Turturro, Rosie Perez, Martin Lawrence, Samuel L. Jackson, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, it made Lee a serious player outside the independent film movement. Since then his career has had highlights (Malcolm X, BlacKkKlansman) and lows (Jungle Fever, She Hate Me) and plenty of controversy but Lee remains a significant director, with a new film (Highest 2 Lowest, a remake of Kurosawa’s High and Low) due out later this year.

I don’t remember much about the hotel where I did my shoot with Spike Lee; it was likely in midtown NY but don’t make me swear on that. I do remember that it was an older building with the usual small windows, so I used high speed film in my Nikon F3. I opted to get close in for the shots, and the colour rolls I shot for the cover were constrained by the cover format of the magazine at the time, which required space at the top and sides for type and graphics, though I think I was learning to work with this pretty well by now.

I found Lee to be a wary but generally cooperative subject, though I knew as soon as I started that I wasn’t going to get him to loosen up and give me anything that played against his public image. I also managed to get a quick shoot with his sister Joie, one of the co-stars of the film; she was striking and something of an “It Girl” at the time and I was always happy with the handful of shots I took of her in an adjacent bedroom of the hotel suite with the Rolleiflex I brought along just in case.

[breadoaf]