She's Gotta Have It
Encyclopedia
She's Gotta Have It is a 1986
American comedy
-drama
film written
and directed
by Spike Lee
. It was also Lee's first feature-length film. The film stars Tracy Camilla Johns
, Tommy Redmond Hicks and John Canada Terrell. Also appearing are cinematographer Ernest Dickerson
as a Brooklyn resident and in an early appearance, S. Epatha Merkerson
as a doctor.
Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell); and the immature, motor-mouthed bicycle messenger
Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). Nola is attracted to the best in each of them, but refuses to commit to any of them, cherishing her personal freedom instead, even though each man wants her for himself.
elements and popular film language. In addition, it represents the first movie of the 1980s to place the achievement of individual desire at the forefront of the black liberation movement, in the same manner the individual is at the center of the hip-hop revolution (i.e., the rapper). The movie also gave blackness a universal face, through the eyes of Mars (Spike Lee
) and a universal home, Brooklyn
. It is the story of Nola Darling, a young black woman, a source of conversation both in and out of the film. The film’s narrative style is taken from the challenges and pleasures of the competing views on who Nola truly is. This signifies the major source of controversy of the sexism
in the movie as the viewer is reluctant to accept Nola’s voice as authoritative.
Nola idealizes having what men in the black community have—multiple sex partners—which symbolizes her as an individual struggling against the group. “A woman (or, at least Nola) can be a sexual being, doesn’t have to belong to a man, and perhaps shouldn’t even wish for such a thing.” Above all, Nola’s voice is the most revolutionary element in the film, a representation of the struggle of African American women in society at the time.
.
The New York Times wrote that the film "ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch
's Stranger Than Paradise
) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the representation of blacks in American cinema, depicting men and women of color not as pimps and whores, but as intelligent, upscale urbanites."
The film was shot in twelve days during the summer of 1985 on a budget of $175,000 and grossed $7,137,502 at the U.S. box office. Spike Lee details his trials and consolations on the making and distribution of the film in the book Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. The highly stylized, black-and-white film features a jazz
score by Lee's father, Bill
. Culture critic Nelson George
, a personal friend of Lee's, was one of the film's main investors.
The film also served as a turning point for the Brooklyn
neighborhood it was filmed in. Lee portrayed the neighborhood as a vibrant cosmopolitan community where successful African Americans thrived. In the film he not only focused scenes on Nola and her struggles, but spent time shooting local children, residents and graffiti, revealing the struggles of the neighborhood and the people in it to the world. A public park was used for the setting of much of the movie. This public space is made to feel like a comfortable place for the characters, serving to encourage others to investigate public spaces in the area and consequently creating a link with viewers in other places who also had similar thriving public spaces that were of community importance.
After the movie was released media attention was drawn to Brooklyn
, from which a flood of artists and musicians began emerging.
1986 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards
1987 Independent Spirit Awards
for the first time in North America
on January 15, 2008, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
through United Artists
and MGM. However, despite the film celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2006 and being available on DVD in the United Kingdom
, the DVD release for Region 1 took longer than expected. For a number of years, the film could only be seen by the public on its now out-of-print VHS
tape, or occasional appearances on television
networks such as the Independent Film Channel
.
In the mid-1990s, The Criterion Collection
released the film on laserdisc
. A well-supplemented disc, it was likely to simply be reissued on DVD by The Criterion Collection, which had re-released other Spike Lee Joints including Do The Right Thing
. According to Spike Lee
's agent, the film was to be eventually released on DVD. But, after frequent e-mails to Jonathan Turell of The Criterion Collection, the rumour ended with him saying "No for She's Gotta Have It. We don't have DVD rights."
It was the first movie to air on This TV
when it launched on November 1, 2008, excluding some stations that started offering the network on the day before it aired.
The current DVD contains no special features.
In 2010 the film was digitized in High Definition (1080i
) and broadcast on MGM HD
.
1986 in film
-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....
American comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
-drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
film written
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
and directed
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
by Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
. It was also Lee's first feature-length film. The film stars Tracy Camilla Johns
Tracy Camilla Johns
Tracy Camilla Johns is an American film actress. She is best known for her leading role as "Nola Darling" in Spike Lee's 1986 film She's Gotta Have It...
, Tommy Redmond Hicks and John Canada Terrell. Also appearing are cinematographer Ernest Dickerson
Ernest Dickerson
Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C. is an American film and television director and cinematographer. He directed generally urban films sometimes with supernatural stories like Juice, Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, Bones and Never Die Alone...
as a Brooklyn resident and in an early appearance, S. Epatha Merkerson
S. Epatha Merkerson
S. Epatha Merkerson is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has won a Golden Globe, Emmy Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards, Obie Award and four NAACP Image Awards. She has also received two Tony Award nominations...
as a doctor.
Plot
Nola Darling (portrayed by Tracy Camilla Johns) is a young, attractive, sexually-independent Brooklynite who juggles three suitors: the polite and well-meaning Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks); the self-obsessed modelModel (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell); and the immature, motor-mouthed bicycle messenger
Bicycle messenger
Bicycle messengers are people who work for courier companies carrying and delivering items by bicycle. Bicycle messengers are most often found in the central business districts of metropolitan areas...
Mars Blackmon (Spike Lee). Nola is attracted to the best in each of them, but refuses to commit to any of them, cherishing her personal freedom instead, even though each man wants her for himself.
Themes
She’s Gotta Have It contributes to countless African AmericanAfrican American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
elements and popular film language. In addition, it represents the first movie of the 1980s to place the achievement of individual desire at the forefront of the black liberation movement, in the same manner the individual is at the center of the hip-hop revolution (i.e., the rapper). The movie also gave blackness a universal face, through the eyes of Mars (Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
) and a universal home, Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
. It is the story of Nola Darling, a young black woman, a source of conversation both in and out of the film. The film’s narrative style is taken from the challenges and pleasures of the competing views on who Nola truly is. This signifies the major source of controversy of the sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
in the movie as the viewer is reluctant to accept Nola’s voice as authoritative.
Nola idealizes having what men in the black community have—multiple sex partners—which symbolizes her as an individual struggling against the group. “A woman (or, at least Nola) can be a sexual being, doesn’t have to belong to a man, and perhaps shouldn’t even wish for such a thing.” Above all, Nola’s voice is the most revolutionary element in the film, a representation of the struggle of African American women in society at the time.
Background
She's Gotta Have It was Lee's first feature length motion picture as a writer/director and a landmark independent film of American cinemaCinema of the United States
The cinema of the United States, also known as Hollywood, has had a profound effect on cinema across the world since the early 20th century. Its history is sometimes separated into four main periods: the silent film era, classical Hollywood cinema, New Hollywood, and the contemporary period...
.
The New York Times wrote that the film "ushered in (along with Jim Jarmusch
Jim Jarmusch
James R. "Jim" Jarmusch is an American independent film director, screenwriter, actor, producer, editor and composer. Jarmusch has been a major proponent of independent cinema, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s.-Early life:...
's Stranger Than Paradise
Stranger Than Paradise
Stranger Than Paradise is a 1984 American absurdist/deadpan comedy film. It was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch and stars jazz musician John Lurie, former Sonic Youth drummer-turned-actor Richard Edson, and Hungarian-born actress Eszter Balint...
) the American independent film movement of the 1980s. It was also a groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers and a welcome change in the representation of blacks in American cinema, depicting men and women of color not as pimps and whores, but as intelligent, upscale urbanites."
The film was shot in twelve days during the summer of 1985 on a budget of $175,000 and grossed $7,137,502 at the U.S. box office. Spike Lee details his trials and consolations on the making and distribution of the film in the book Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. The highly stylized, black-and-white film features a jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
score by Lee's father, Bill
Bill Lee (musician)
William James Edwards "Bill" Lee III is an American musician. He has played the bass for many artists including Cat Stevens, Harry Belafonte, Chad Mitchell Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Simon and Garfunkel, and Bob Dylan...
. Culture critic Nelson George
Nelson George
Nelson George is an African American author, columnist, music and culture critic, journalist, and filmmaker. He has been nominated twice for the National Book Critics Circle Award....
, a personal friend of Lee's, was one of the film's main investors.
The film also served as a turning point for the Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
neighborhood it was filmed in. Lee portrayed the neighborhood as a vibrant cosmopolitan community where successful African Americans thrived. In the film he not only focused scenes on Nola and her struggles, but spent time shooting local children, residents and graffiti, revealing the struggles of the neighborhood and the people in it to the world. A public park was used for the setting of much of the movie. This public space is made to feel like a comfortable place for the characters, serving to encourage others to investigate public spaces in the area and consequently creating a link with viewers in other places who also had similar thriving public spaces that were of community importance.
After the movie was released media attention was drawn to Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
, from which a flood of artists and musicians began emerging.
Cast
|
Erik Dellums Erik Todd Dellums is a U.S. actor. He has had parts in television police dramas such as New York Undercover, Homicide: Life on the Street and The Wire... — Dog 3 Reginald Hudlin Reginald Alan Hudlin is an American writer and film director.-Biography:Hudlin is the son of Helen , a teacher, and Warrington W. Hudlin, Sr., an insurance executive and teacher... — Dog 4 Ernest Dickerson Ernest Roscoe Dickerson A.S.C. is an American film and television director and cinematographer. He directed generally urban films sometimes with supernatural stories like Juice, Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight, Bones and Never Die Alone... — Dog 8 Fab Five Freddy Fred Brathwaite , more popularly known as Fab 5 Freddy, is an American Hip hop historian, Hip hop pioneer and former graffiti artist... — Dog 10 |
Awards and nominations
1986 Cannes Film FestivalCannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
- "Award of the Youth" Foreign Film — Spike Lee (won)
1986 Los Angeles Film Critics Awards
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
The Los Angeles Film Critics Association was founded in 1975. Its main purpose is to present yearly awards to members of the film industry who have excelled in their fields. These awards are presented each January...
- "New Generation Award" — Spike Lee (won)
1987 Independent Spirit Awards
Independent Spirit Awards
The Independent Spirit Awards , founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass pyramids containing suspended shoestrings representing the paltry budgets of independent films. In 1986, the event was renamed the Independent Spirit...
- Best First Feature — Spike Lee (won)
- Best Female Lead — Tracy Camilla Johns (nominated)
Current availability
She's Gotta Have It was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
for the first time in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
on January 15, 2008, by 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is the home video distribution arm of the 20th Century Fox film studio. It was established in 1976 as Magnetic Video Corporation, and later as 20th Century Fox Video, CBS/Fox Video and FoxVideo, Inc....
through United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
and MGM. However, despite the film celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2006 and being available on DVD in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the DVD release for Region 1 took longer than expected. For a number of years, the film could only be seen by the public on its now out-of-print VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
tape, or occasional appearances on television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
networks such as the Independent Film Channel
Independent Film Channel
The Independent Film Channel is an American cable TV network that airs independent film and related programming. IFC programming includes commercially interrupted feature-length films, original documentaries, shorts, animated series, original series, acquired series, and content exclusively for...
.
In the mid-1990s, The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection is a video-distribution company selling "important classic and contemporary films" to film aficionados. The Criterion series is noted for helping to standardize the letterbox format for home video, bonus features, and special editions...
released the film on laserdisc
Laserdisc
LaserDisc was a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium. Initially licensed, sold, and marketed as MCA DiscoVision in North America in 1978, the technology was previously referred to interally as Optical Videodisc System, Reflective Optical Videodisc, Laser Optical...
. A well-supplemented disc, it was likely to simply be reissued on DVD by The Criterion Collection, which had re-released other Spike Lee Joints including Do The Right Thing
Do the Right Thing
Do the Right Thing is a 1989 American dramedy produced, written, and directed by Spike Lee, who is also a featured actor in the film. Other members of the cast include Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson, Giancarlo Esposito, Bill Nunn, and John Turturro. It is also notably the...
. According to Spike Lee
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee is an American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres & A Mule Filmworks, has produced over 35 films since 1983....
's agent, the film was to be eventually released on DVD. But, after frequent e-mails to Jonathan Turell of The Criterion Collection, the rumour ended with him saying "No for She's Gotta Have It. We don't have DVD rights."
It was the first movie to air on This TV
This TV
This TV is a United States general entertainment television network, with a large emphasis in its programming on movies....
when it launched on November 1, 2008, excluding some stations that started offering the network on the day before it aired.
The current DVD contains no special features.
In 2010 the film was digitized in High Definition (1080i
1080i
1080i is the shorthand name for a high-definition television mode. The i means interlaced video; 1080i differs from 1080p, in which the p stands for progressive scan. The term 1080i assumes a widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9, implying a frame size of 1920×1080 pixels...
) and broadcast on MGM HD
MGM HD
MGM HD is an all high-definition television channel. It features commercial-free movies from MGM's library of approximately 1,200 movies mastered in a high-definition-compatible format as well as feature films from their library of 4,100 theatrical titles...
.