Spike Lee: A New York state of mind

Embattled, fiesty and unapologetic, Spike Lee reflects the city he has chronicled for nearly two decades. On the eve of a London retrospective and the release of his latest movie, the outspoken director tells David Usborne why he isn't about to change now

Spike Lee comes into the small conference room at Spike DDB, his Manhattan advertising agency, as sweet as a lamb. Known almost as much for his obsession with sports (notably with the New York Knicks basketball team) as for his films, he has donned an Arsenal FC shirt. He takes a seat, crosses his arms on the table, and looks up from beneath his slightly hooded lids, ready to talk.

The mellow soon gives way to the testy. The targets of his impatience quickly accumulate. He has harsh words for George Bush, the Hollywood studios, the media in general as well as several of his industry peers, such as Miramax's chief Harvey Weinstein and Woody Allen.

No one ever accused the 46-year-old Lee of pulling his political or artistic punches. The 17 films he has made in as many years have been his mouthpiece and weapon, touching on myriad urban social issues, most of them racially inflected. The slogan for his production company, 40 Acres and A Mule, is "By Any Means Necessary".

Lee appears tonight and tomorrow night at the Barbican in London for a retrospective of his work and performances of music from his films. The son of a jazz musician, Lee has always made the score a priority. "The music can be used to tell the story in the same way as cinematography, editing, production design, costumes and all that stuff. We try to utilise it in the best way we can," he notes. And he has relied on all manner of music to do that, whether we are talking about the use of Public Enemy in one of his earliest and possibly most successful films, Do the Right Thing, or his exploration of Seventies punk in Summer of Sam.

His latest film, 25th Hour, stars Edward Norton as a convicted drug dealer in New York who has 24 hours to sort out his personal affairs. Musically, it relies mostly on the melancholy of Terence Blanchard's moody trumpet strains, with Blanchard introducing an occasional Middle-Eastern note. Ask Lee what that is all about and he answers with a single word: "Tal-i-ban!"

The film, which did only moderate business in the US and failed to win any Oscar nominations in spite of terrific performances from Norton and his co-stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Barry Pepper and Brian Cox, does not deal directly with white-on-black race issues. In truth, neither have many of Lee's films since Do the Right Thing, She's Gotta Have It and his 1992 biographical epic – his magnum opus – Malcolm X. However, it found its own controversy as the first major film openly to acknowledge the wounds suffered by New York on 11 September 2001. "It was very important simply because the film takes place in a post-11 September New York City. We felt the world had changed and how could we not reflect that?" he says . He does not apologise for including a few frames of the image of Osama bin Laden. "We wanted to give people a reminder, give Bush, the CIA, reminders of what he looks like, because he seems to be vanished from the face of the earth. For one minute, on 12 September, he was the most hunted man on the face of the planet. And now he has gone off into the foggy wherever."

Lee admits that the film he most liked in 2002 was Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine, the Oscar-winning documentary that attacks America's gun culture. He can't wait for Moore's next film, which promises to explore connections between President Bush and Bin Laden. Lee is not a fan of "that guy" Bush. "Things have not got any better under the Bush administration, regardless of whether you are African-American or not." He drifts into his distaste for the war in Iraq and the media's coverage of it. He talks of his exasperation at "sitting here in New York and reading the New York Post, owned by Murdoch, about US troops being ambushed through trickery. I mean, how did Bush become President? If that's not trickery, I don't know what trickery is."

Distrust of the media is a recurring theme. He recalls the basting he received with the release of Do the Right Thing in 1989, which culminated in a riot in Brooklyn. "Journalists were saying that Universal Pictures were irresponsible. The young black youth would imitate Spike Lee and start throwing garbage cans through windows, so I was inciting," he snorts. It remains relevant, he insists. "Do you think Driving Miss Daisy holds up to Do the Right Thing now? Is Driving Miss Daisy even watchable now?" He was puzzled when journalists fastened on to comments by the "American Taliban" John Walker after his arrest that he had converted to Islam aged 12 after watching Malcolm X. "The media said Spike Lee was responsible for him joining the Taliban. I just don't worry about it; I thought it was funny."

Some people, perhaps, just have it in for Spike Lee. Could it be that his reputation for dwelling on racial division has caused some among his potential audience to stay away? Aren't some viewers disinclined to go to a Spike Lee movie because they think they are going to be preached at? Has he alienated white audiences? Maybe he suffers just because he is black.

"Suffer? Suffer? Less of an audience? Not at all. White audiences that grew up listening to the blues, The Beatles, The Who... when they hear black music, would you say that they feel alien to it? What's the difference with my films?" he says. "I get grilled about it. 'So, Spike, [spoken with mock serious voice] we feel that white people feel left out of your films.' I mean, that line of thinking is last century. That thinking is crazy."

He is offended. "You look at the racial make up and diversity of my casts vs film makers like Woody Allen. His films for the most part take place in New York City, one of the most diverse cities in the world. You would never ask, if you had a chance to sit down with Woody Allen, 'Woody, how come there are no black people in your films, how come there are no Puerto Ricans in your films?'"

Lee wants us to know that he is not going to change his work for anyone. "Should I do it differently, so more people see my work? No, not if it compromises the work. If you are a black woman, do you have to show your ass and tits like Lil' Kim to sell records? Artists have to answer to themselves." So, if Lee wants to put Bin Laden's face on the screen, then he will do it. Of course that means that he has a tense relationship with Hollywood, where he has to raise the money for every new project. But so be it. "I have final cut. So, it's just a constant struggle to get the films you want and have them made." If he got heat from the studio heads to tone down his material, he would pay no heed. "I have never done that and I have never felt the pressure to do that. If that were the case we would never have included 11 September footage in 25th Hour. We would have acted like it never happened. But I have not done that yet."

He does not make any secret of the distance he keeps from Hollywood. We talk on the morning after the Oscars. He didn't watch, even on TV. "I just have no interest" he begins, before excoriating the whole process. He derides the lengths Weinstein went to to secure an Oscar for his film Gangs of New York, directed by Martin Scorsese – a campaign that didn't pay off. "You know, all that stuff Miramax and Weinstein does to try to get those things, it's got kinda berserk now. It backfired on him and it backfired on Scorsese. It blew up in his face. My appreciation of Martin Scorsese is not dependent on whether he ever wins an Academy Award. I talked to him about this, and he really wants one. Somehow he feels that it would be some kind of validation. But I don't understand that." And Lee complains that the Oscars force the studios to release all their best material all at once, at the end of the year. Does he ever expect to win an Academy Award himself? "I am not holding my breath."

And then there is the stuff that the studios make nowadays. "Hollywood made more money last year than ever before and they are going to try to continue that success, so it means more formulaic films. Are they making the right type of films? Well, if I was a studio executive, I would definitely be making different types of films. And I would probably lose my job after a year because none of my films would make money. But I just think that the diversity of the subject matter can be a lot more original." He saves his longest groan for Bringing Down the House, a newly-released Steve Martin and Queen Latifah vehicle that depends on the black-white clash of the two clowning characters for laughs. Lee has absolutely no intention of seeing it.

Lee has two projects he has been longing to tackle but still cannot, because no one will bankroll him. Both are biographies, one on the first black-American major-league baseball player, Jackie Robinson, and the other about boxer Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber. If he can't do those, what is coming next? Lee wears his best blank face. "I don't know yet," he replies. To the suggestion that this might be the first year in very many when he comes up with nothing, he bangs the table in mock defiance. He can't be sure that won't happen. "It wouldn't be my choice, anyway".

'25th Hour' opens on Friday. The Spike Lee retrospective runs at the Barbican, London EC2 (0845-120 7511) to Thursday