A few years back, Spike Lee and Kevin Willmott were working on an updated version of Lysistrata, the ancient Aristophanes comedy in which the women of Greece go on a sex strike to keep their men from killing each other. "The script was called Got to Get It Up, and we couldn't get it up," Lee laughs from his Brooklyn home. "No one wanted to do it."
Fast-forward a few years. The homicide rate in Chicago surged upward, with an increase of 19 percent in the first half of 2015. Poor African-American and Latino communities were particularly hard hit. In local hip-hop circles, the city was now called Chi-Raq. So Lee called Willmott, the man behind such racial satires as CSA: The Confederate States of America and Destination Planet Negro, and proposed a topical shift in setting, from an unidentified urban locale to the Windy City.
The result is Chi-Raq, opening in theaters Friday. It's Lee's most vital film in years, a wild, woolly satire with the urgency (if not the discipline) of early gems like Do the Right Thing, School Daze and Jungle Fever. The tone is set early by a flashing red sign emblazoned with the words "This is an emergency." The state of crisis is scarcely dampened by Chi-Raq's satirical approach, which, as Lee points out, was good enough for Aristophanes in 411 B.C.
Lee understands that satire stings the most when the stakes are higher. He points to one of his favorite films, Dr. Strangelove. "Just look at the full title," he says. "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. What's more serious than a nuclear holocaust that would destroy the planet?" Chi-Raq isn't Lee's first satirical salvo; his 2000 film Bamboozled took aim at modern-day showbiz minstrelsy at the turn of the 20th century.
Much of Chi-Raq is spoken in rhymed verse, a combination of classical syntax and rap. Early Lee stalwart Samuel L. Jackson is back as Dolmedes (the name is a blend of Archimedes, the ancient Greek polymath, and Dolemite, the ribald Blaxploitation toast master). Wesley Snipes (Jungle Fever, Mo' Better Blues) plays the leader of the Trojans, opposite Nick Cannon, who heads up the Spartans. But the real star is Teyonah Parris, who brings sensual fury to the role of Lysistrata.
The change of locale and title helped get Chi-Raq into theaters, but so did new production and distribution models. The film was co-produced by Amazon ("Everybody said no except them," Lee says). Chi-Raq is the company's first original feature. It arrives on the heels of Beasts of No Nation, the recent African civil war drama produced by Netflix. The streaming giants are making a run at the big screen.
Lee, now 58, acknowledges the value of these new avenues in producing stories that might otherwise not see the light of day. But he's not celebrating just yet. Last month, when he received an honorary Academy Award, he used the occasion to point out how few Hollywood decision-makers belong to minority communities.
"Everybody here probably voted for Obama," he said in accepting his award. "But in [Hollywood] offices, I see no black folks except for the man who's the security guard who checks my name off the list as I go into the studio."
Lee uses an example from the Broadway musical hit Hamilton. The song "The Room Where It Happens" plays off the exclusive environment in which political deals are struck ("We just assume that it happens/But no one else is in/The room where it happens").
"That song is very applicable to African-Americans, and where people of color stand within the Hollywood studio system and the broadcast and cable networks," Lee says. "We're not in the room."
Not yet. But with Chi-Raq, Lee, at least, is back in the cultural conversation.
