Spike Lee

Spike Lee

director, producer, writer

Spike Lee was born on Mar 20, 1957 in USA. Spike Lee's big-screen debut came with Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads directed by Spike Lee in 1983. Spike Lee is known for You Resemble Me directed by Dina Amer, Lorenza Grimaudo stars as Child Hasna and Ilonna Grimaudo as Child Mariam. Spike Lee has got 93 awards and 184 nominations so far. The most recent award Spike Lee achieved is Directors Guild of America, USA. The upcoming new movie Spike Lee plays is You Resemble Me which will be released on Feb 03, 2023.

Spike Lee was born Shelton Jackson Lee on March 20, 1957, in Atlanta, Georgia. At a very young age, he moved from pre-civil rights Georgia, to Brooklyn, New York. Lee came from artistic, education-grounded background; his father was a jazz musician, and his mother, a schoolteacher. He attended school in Morehouse College in Atlanta and developed his film making skills at Clark Atlanta University. After graduating from Morehouse, Lee attended the Tisch School of Arts graduate film program. He made a controversial short, The Answer (1980), a reworking of D.W. Griffith's Naissance d'une nation (1915), a ten-minute film. Lee went on to produce a 45-minute film Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads (1983) which won a student Academy Award. In 1986, Spike Lee made the film, Nola Darling n'en fait qu'à sa tête (1986), a comedy about sexual relationships. The movie was made for $175,000, and earned $7 million at the box office, which launched his career and allowed him to found his own production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks. His next movie was School Daze (1988), which was set at a historically black school, focused mostly on the conflict between the school and the Fraternities, of which he was a strong critic, portraying them as materialistic, irresponsible, and uncaring. With his School Daze (1988) profits, Lee went on to make his landmark film, Do the Right Thing (1989), a movie based specifically his own neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York. The movie portrayed the racial tensions that emerge in the Bed-Stuy neighborhood on one very hot day. The movie garnered Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay, for Danny Aiello for supporting actor, and sparked a debate on racial relations. Lee went on to produce and direct the jazz biopic Mo' Better Blues (1990), the first of many Spike Lee films to feature Denzel Washington, including the biography of Malcolm X (1992), in which Washington portrayed the civil rights leader. The movie was a success, and garnered an Oscar nomination for Washington. The pair would work together again on He Got Game (1998), an excursion into the collegiate world showing the darker side of college athletic recruiting, as well as the 2006 film Inside Man - L'homme de l'intérieur (2006). Spike Lee's role as a documentarian has expanded over the years, highlighted by his participation in Lumière et compagnie (1995), the Oscar-nominated 4 Little Girls (1997), to his Peabody Award-winning biographical adaptation of Black Panther leader in A Huey P. Newton Story (2001), through his 2005 Emmy Award-winning examination of post-Katrina New Orleans in Quand les digues se sont brisées: un requiem en quatre actes (2006) and its follow-up five years later If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise (2010). Through his production company 40 Acres and A Mule Filmworks, Lee continues to create and direct both independent films and projects for major studios, as well as working on story development, creating an internship program for aspiring filmmakers, releasing music, and community outreach and support. He is married to Tonya Lewis Lee, and they have two sons, Satchel and Jackson.

  • Birthday

    Mar 20, 1957
  • Place of Birth

    Atlanta, Georgia, USA
  • Also known

    스파이크 리, スパイク・リー, สไปค์ ลี, 史派克·李, Σπάικ Λι, Спайк Ли, سبايك لي

Known For

Awards

93 wins & 184 nominations

Directors Guild of America, USA
2022
Winner - Lifetime Achievement Award
American Cinema Editors, USA
2021
Winner - Golden Eddie Filmmaker of the Year Award
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Movies & TV Shows

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Movies