Quentin vs. Spike

Powerhouses of the 90s.

Both really wanting to have roles in their own movies, despite neither being talented enough to act, and both being didactic in their filmmaking, although Spike's sermons are much more pronounced. Spike tells more mature stories, but with less refined acting. There's something more "student film" about Spike.

Spike's got his camera angles and blocking. QT has his non-linear storytelling and pastiche homage-a-thon approach.

They don't appear to like each other much. Sam Jackson must be grateful to have had both of them give him a boost.

I kind of love and hate them both for the same reasons. Talented, but obnoxious men.

Quentin is a better,more consistent filmmaker. Spike has his moments and has done some good films, but his best films aren't as good as Quentin's bests and his weakest films are worse than anything Quentin has directed.

There are some films which do not feel like definitive Spike Lee Joints as his early films did. Inside Man is a film that could've been directed by anyone. The only aspect of it which is distinctly Spike is a character's concern over a video game a kid is playing which makes gratuitous use of the N-word. Quentin's films, on the other hand, all carry his stamp.

I'd probably lean towards Tarantino, but Lee isn't too far behind.

EDIT: I just compared my ratings for both filmmakers and I might actually go for Lee.

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Spike had his finger on the pulse of the sour undercurrent in American race relations decades before BLM. He also gave voice to the black experience in ways other films didn't. His films are more culturally important in this sense. These films were discomforting and thought-provoking. He didn't offer clean-cut heroes, but people flaws and he put compelling arguments into the mouths of his protagonists and antagonists.

It would be interesting to trap the two of them in a SAW scenario, forcing them to collaborate on a film project or die trying. I think they'd both probably kill each other rather than compromise, but who knows?

A character named "Senor Love Daddy" can he heard on the radio in Mo Better Blues and Do The Right Thing. Quentin has those Red Apple cigarettes everywhere. Stephen King has characters, phrases, events, and metaphysical fact (e.g., how psychic powers work) spread over his books (Ka is a wheel, right Stephen?).

HYPOTHESIS: The more you have your head up your own backside, the more likely you are to construct a separate universe in which all of your stories occur.

I kinda hate Spike Lee tbh.


Love Quentin.

I don't "hate" Lee but he is off-putting. Haven't seen most of his films either, but I've seen the big ones.

It's QT for me with ease... Non-linear narrative and "pastiche homage-a-thon approach" are pretty cool but how about freaking awesome characters?

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Spike Lee made at least 3 great movies, and many Many mediocre ones. Pretty much my opinion of Tarantino too, tbh.

And Stephen King books.

I am solidly with QT up to and including Jackie Brown. I tuned out when he got into his revenge-quest movie era. I am with King up to 1978 or 1979.

I think Quentin has made more quality films than Spike. Outside of Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, most of Spike’s work is kind of meh

I always consider Spike to be a lesser version of Woody Allen...more of a movie factory type guy often time his films being underbaked and rushed out. He's had his high's no doubt but Tarantino's films are age-less while some of Spikes films have aged really poorly.

He Got Game was also a really solid film.

Cool thread and topic to consider.

I really like both of these directors a lot, not only for their films, but also in how both have championed the medium of film as a pure art form AND their efforts in film preservation and in bringing attention to the classics to modern audiences that otherwise might not even want to mess with a film before 1990 or 1980.

While neither make my top 10 list of directors, nor would I put them on a list of personal favorites and I certainly don't idolize either as the second coming of film, the way their devour followers do, they both are wonderful filmmakers.

Of the two, I'd probably put them on par, but if I had to pick, I'd go with Spike Lee, if for nothing else, Do the Right Thing is a complete masterpiece and Tarantino has never made anything quite up to the level of that film.

I haven't seen all of their films from either director. I still need to watch a handful of Spike Lee films and I have yet to stumbled across Once Upon a Time in Hollywood from Tarantino. I do love The Hateful Eight and I consider that to be Tarantino's masterpiece. Pulp Fiction is good fun and well crafted, but how it became such a ubiquitous hit and a part of the canon and on most people's top lists of whatever, I'm sure I'll never know. I think Tarantino is just a good salesman and loves to talk about film - his work and anyone elses... which is fine, but I think a lot of people confuse some of his passion for supreme greatness, at least as far as Pulp Fiction is concerned. Tarantino I think is a direct who has gotten better with time, while Lee maybe not as much.

I did really like Da 5 Bloods from 2020 which came as a surprise... really cool film and simple premise - connecting in a bunch of old Vietnam vets with issues to a treasure hunt story with Spike Lee flair might seem odd, but it's really a neat film and I was with it clear until the very end where I thought Delroy Lindo's character going off the reservation was a bit much and too big of a tonal leap in the film, but a forgivable misstep. I felt the exact same way with Tarantino's Django. I absolutely loved it until the final shootout where it became almost slapstick with how over the top it all was. The Django shootout truly felt like it belonged in a different film like in a John Woo movie or The Matrix. Again, it was fine, but here's the thing, it undermined the "decided upon" tone of everything preceding it in the film.

Oh and Spike Lee gets props for making what is probably one of the most interesting and dare I use the term underrated films from the late 1990's He Got Game.

As far as Tarantino goes, just off the top of my head with some quick ratings without rewatches:



1. The Hateful Eight - A+ (masterpiece)
2. Jackie Brown - A
3. Death Proof - A
4. Pulp Fiction - A
5. Inglorious Basterds - A-
6. Django Unchained - B+
7. Reservoir Dogs - B
8. Kill Bill Vol 2 - B
9. Kill Bill Vol 1 - B-


Now for Lee:



1. Do the Right Thing - A++ (masterpiece AND essential viewing for anyone living in America)
2. Malcolm X - A
3. 25th Hour - A
4. He Got Game - A
5. Inside Man - A-
6. Get on the Bus - B+
7. Summer of Sam - B+
8. Clockers - NR (I know for a fact I've seen this, but it's been since I was either in eighth or ninth grade and I just can't remember it enough to even give a rough grading of the film)


So yeah, Lee if for no other reason gets it because he has made a "Citizen Kane" level film in Do the Right Thing, meanwhile Tarantino has not. Like I said, I get a lot of people love Pulp Fiction and, heck, I even give it an "A" rating because it truly is a wonderful, wonderful film that you can be damn sure I'll watch if its on and can jump right in and enjoy the shit out of it any time. It just not transcendent for me or reaches me at that gut visceral level like a film such as Do the Right Thing does or even a great noir like Billy Wilder's Sunset Blvd. It's difficult to explain, but when watching a film like Pulp Fiction I feel like I'm still in control and in the driver's seat. Whereas when I watch a film like Do the Right Thing or Sunset Blvd (since I'm using those two as examples), I'm completely at the mercy of the filmmakers and their art can emotionally and intellectually rag-doll me and take me and do whatever they want with me. They are in control and whether or not I'm a willing participant is completely beyond the point. I don't have a choice and I'm eating it up regardless.

Both directors, again, I love what they have done for the art form of film and that both do advocate for film being an art form rather than just throw away entertainment to kill a couple of hours. Obviously, if you're reading this or posting here, you likely feel somewhat the same in terms of film. Posting on a film message board forum isn't exactly something a person who just thinks of movies as idle entertainment likely does.

One of the interesting things about Lee and this is for me personally, as your mileage may vary, is that he does make very political films and he is outspoken. Tarantino is also a bit left of center, but Lee is far more vocal about his politics than Tarantino is. The neat thing that I've discovered with Spike Lee films is that despite being a political activist and advocate in a direction that is fundamentally opposed to my own views (conservative-libertarian), is HOW he includes both sides of the political spectrum in his films and gives voices to the entire breadth of sides. In watching Do the Right Thing, he never preaches to the audience or tells them how or what to think in deciding whether Mookie did the right thing... all Lee does is ask the audience to think. To a certain extent he did that too with Da 5 Bloods and I really REALLY love his critique of how capitalism and marketing has really hurt collegiate basketball and how it brought out the sharks where everyone wants to take a piece of someone else and how it critiques the nature of relationships and connections between people when we reduced ourselves to simply being transactional with one another. So even though I'm a capitalist and fear the alternative, Lee is still above to reach to me and speak to me and respect both sides of the issues, which is rare for a far-sided political leaning director (regardless of they being right or left) to be able to respect and show voices and value in sides you may disagree with. I think he puts a lot of humanity into his works. To contrast, a filmmaker like Michael Moore is one I disagree with AND one whom I find greatly manipulative, offensive, and derogatory and unfair to those opposed to his viewpoints. Moore is a hack and an ass, while Lee is the real deal and a respectful artist. I say this not to bash on Moore necessarily (although if an opportunity presents itself), but rather to highlight the strengths of what Lee does and just how rare, rare, rare it truly is.



I do need to dig deeper into his filmography, which is huge, because I've only seen about half or maybe a third of his films.

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We had a debate topic back around 2011 or 2012, sometime in there, with an Affirmative resolution that centered on the NCAA providing compensation for its college athletes. It was a great topic, AND if I remember right during mid-season the NCAA actually changed some rules and allowed college athletes to receive financial compensation for their likeness in video games, jersey sales, etc. That was a crazy season because all the teams from all the schools had to scramble and change their constructives AND their AFF plans (it was policy debate). A lot of fun, but it was hectic especially for us coaches trying to dissect the rule changes and work all that out and understand it with the students. Good times, but I mention it because I actually showed clips of He Got Game to the students as it dealt with that very topic.

I also love LOVE how Lee used Aaron Copeland's music in the film too. That was a stroke of genius and I love how music is such an integral part of many of Lee's films. He Got Game, while by no means perfect, is so damn good and it's too bad that it's largely forgotten about and rarely seen today.

And the 1980s (Lee), and the 2000s (both), and the 2010s (both), AND likely with Tarantino's next (final?) project about a film critic (maybe) and with Lee's upcoming Akira Kurosawa remake/homage film High and Low, the 2020's (both).

I think the "cost of entry" is higher for Lee's films and they probably have a much smaller niche' audience and are films which are more targeted in both style and subject matter. To me that doesn't make them any lesser. If we equate this to comedies/dramedies/romancedies of the 1930s and 1940s, then Tarantino is a Frank Capra, while Lee is an Ernst Lubitsch.

There is a sort of faux-refutation, a sort of informal fallacy, I've discovered which we might call the, "Yeah, I've head that before" fallacy. I remember being at a conference, decades ago, discussing the use of laptops to flow debate rounds, and discussing the matter informally in the hallway. I had a few ideas off the top of my head which were dismissed along the lines of "Yeah, other people have said that too..." as if that was a refutation. Since then, I've noticed this pattern crop up from time-to-time. The mere awareness of the existence of an argument somehow serves as a source of inoculation for some folks.

I guess the idea is that if you've already heard the argument and haven't yet changed your mind, you must not have been persuaded by it, which is apparently evidence that it was a weak argument or that there is some slam-dunk refutation you could conjure if you could trouble yourself to remember it. Of course, cognitive dissonance means that we all wind up being unpersuaded by good evidence and reasoning that we've heard before, so this is a tenuous way to reason.

I think Spike introduced us to a version of this argument in NOT denying good lines to his opposition in his movies. Sal was regarded as a "sympathetic racist" because he gets a lot of good lines on Do the Right Thing. He freaks out at the end and drops the "N-bomb," but Lee controlled the pen (like Jessica Rabbit, we have to ask if he is really bad if he's just drawn that way). What is persuasive about Lee's advocacy, in part, is his willingness to let his enemies get good lines. He steel mans them a bit. It's like he's saying, "Yeah, I know what you're going to say. I know how you would right this scene. Now, how is you're wrong anyway. It's a powerful rhetorical technique. Much more powerful than the mustache twirling villains of the new iterations of Star Wars.

Love him or hate him, you couldn't dismiss him. He showed you that he understood what both sides were thinking and he was going to challenge you. Quentin, on the other hand, has amusing ideas about Madonna's "Like a Virgin" and Clark Kent being a critique of humanity. Cute, but kind of "contractors on the Death Star in Clerks" type-stuff.

That's always been something that's baffled me; how in spite of good evidence to the contrary, people might still be dug in and refuse to even acknowledge countervailing viewpoints. I'm also aware that what people say they are persuaded by and what people really are persuaded by are often times two very different things. Also whether or not a person is persuaded by an argument or line of reasoning, often has very little to do with the rhetorical quality of said point. People dig in, people aren't logical, people are prideful, people want to save face, people attach beliefs, arguments, and worldviews into concepts of self and identity... people are just... weird. God help me, for being one of them and amongst them.



Lee certainly lets his characters get their day in court and shows each one respect. I don't know if that's steel-manning the antagonists in his films and just trusting the audience to see that, for example, Sal was a racist all along! Or if Lee is simply showing humans as they are. The fact is Sal was pissed, was NOT being heard, so he dropped the racial slur, not because he was racist, but rather because he was dug in, angry, and it was the only thing he could think to say without resorting to violence that would get through.

See, here's the thing a lot of people don't seem to always get. People say shit ALL the time they don't truly mean nor stuff that necessarily reflects their true belief systems. For the gender equivalent of the "N-Bomb" just think how often people have used a term that has made it's way into popular colloquial lexicon, calling certain females Karens which is a soft and somewhat socially acceptable synonym of a four letter "C-word" we dare not use in public. People say that stuff all the time without necessarily meaning it or being misogynistic. It's just a desperate way people try to take control of a situation that they believe is getting out of control and beyond them. In psychology it's called "flooding" and that's exactly what Sal was doing when he lets loose and it's exactly what Mookie was doing when he throws the trash can through the window of Sal's. And that doesn't excuse either of their actions because BOTH were wrong and yes, two things can be true at once.