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  • Do The Right Thing

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    Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing uses color to visually indicate tone and foreshadow events. The film is dominated by the colors red, yellow, and orange, which are often associated with heat, anger, and tension. From the beginning of the film until its climax, the sky is depicted as overwhelmingly orange, reflecting the rising tensions in the community on that hot summer day. Only when Mookie visits his sister is there a brief sense of comfort, as her walls are shown in a rare pink color. By the film's conclusion, the color yellow comes to permeate the screen, suggesting that while tensions still remain, the neighborhood may now be able to move forward in a more positive direction.

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    Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing uses color to visually indicate tone and foreshadow events. The film is dominated by the colors red, yellow, and orange, which are often associated with heat, anger, and tension. From the beginning of the film until its climax, the sky is depicted as overwhelmingly orange, reflecting the rising tensions in the community on that hot summer day. Only when Mookie visits his sister is there a brief sense of comfort, as her walls are shown in a rare pink color. By the film's conclusion, the color yellow comes to permeate the screen, suggesting that while tensions still remain, the neighborhood may now be able to move forward in a more positive direction.

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    5 views2 pages

    Do The Right Thing

    Uploaded by

    El Capitan Amazing
    Spike Lee's 1989 film Do The Right Thing uses color to visually indicate tone and foreshadow events. The film is dominated by the colors red, yellow, and orange, which are often associated with heat, anger, and tension. From the beginning of the film until its climax, the sky is depicted as overwhelmingly orange, reflecting the rising tensions in the community on that hot summer day. Only when Mookie visits his sister is there a brief sense of comfort, as her walls are shown in a rare pink color. By the film's conclusion, the color yellow comes to permeate the screen, suggesting that while tensions still remain, the neighborhood may now be able to move forward in a more positive direction.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Carter Schaeffer

    Foundations in Film

    November 16, 2023

    Extra Color Is Two Dollars

    Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing (1989) is a masterclass in visually indicating tone and

    foreshadowing. Right from the very beginning we are struck by three colors that will dominate

    the film’s palette: red, yellow, and orange. These colors are often associated with heat, anger, and

    tension (in no particular order), ideas that Do The Right Thing is certainly no stranger to. The

    colors orange and red in particular dominate the film from the time the sun rises on that hot

    summer’s day. From the time Da Mayor gets out of bed to the time he goes back to Mother Sister

    and praises god the sun is going down, the sky is more orange than it is blue. Sweet Dick Willie,

    Coconut Sid, and ML seem content to place themselves in front of a red brick wall, visually and

    very audibly locking themselves in a place of anger they direct toward Sonny and his family,

    white Americans, and fellow black Americans. The only respite seems to be when Mookie

    revisits his sister Jade, whose walls are pink, providing a very rare sense of comfort for a viewer

    grown accustomed to the violent, sweaty color grading.

    After the destruction of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria, orange once again peers into Da Mayor’s

    eyes when he wakes up in the morning, but after he and Mother Sister look out the window

    together, the orange gives way to red; Mookie wakes up with Tina and Hector, and not in his

    sister’s house. After Mookie and Sal have their very tense reconciliation, the color yellow

    permeates the screen. The summer heat is still there, and so are the tensions that led to Radio

    Raheem’s murder, but maybe that little neighborhood in Brooklyn can start making moves in the

    right direction toward the future. Ever since Mookie did the right thing and directed the crowd’s
    anger to the pizzeria instead of Sal and his sons, a fire that had been building up in the

    community has been put out, for now.

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