July 1–8, 1999

movie shorts

Summer of Sam

recommended

It was a hot time in the city. The days were sweltering and the nights vibrating with the latest mania, disco. As recalled by journalist Jimmy Breslin, who introduces Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam, the Bronx of 1977’s summer pulsed with "love and hate, both equally."

Grand and outrageous, Lee’s movie captures this tension by focusing on an Italian-American neighborhood terrorized by Son of Sam, and more specifically, characters who are both afraid of and driven by sex. Hairdresser Vinny (John Leguizamo) adores his wife Dionna (Mira Sorvino), but can’t have decent sex with her. Instead, he screws every other woman he can, everywhichway, looking for dirty power-thrills per his gotta-be-macho upbringing.

Then there’s Vinny’s friend, the gentle Ritchie (Adrien Brody) and his girlfriend, former neighborhood "tramp" Ruby (Jennifer Esposito). Living in the Village, Ritchie’s become a spiky-haired punk rocker who finally makes it when he gets a gig at CBGB’s ("How do you spell that?" wonders Vinny). He’s also dancing and turning tricks at a gay porn club. Homosexuality has never been Lee’s strong suit, but Ritchie is seriously sympathetic, ruthlessly victimized by childhood friends who fear his difference. The movie uses him not to resolve its many sexual and identity crises, but to illuminate and humanize them.

Vinny first appears, appropriately, in his great red convertible, sailing down the street with Dionna. Arriving at their destination, the Club Virgo, they seem to float through the entrance, her Barbie doll dress swirling well above her knees, in perfect synch with his electric-blue suit. They’re greeted by friends and admirers as they glide to the dance floor where their moves are precise, sexy, on fire.

For a moment, the film disappears everyone around them and they look dreamy and fantastic. The action slows and cools; Lee’s movie looks like it’s going to be too contrived, too eccentric. But it’s only a moment. From here on, the film turns up the heat, turns increasingly intense and audacious. It’s the best, most ambitious and, ironically, most personal work that this gifted, controversial filmmaker has made since Do The Right Thing 10 years ago.

No doubt, people will complain about this movie, call it scandalous or just too strange. According to The New York Times, its images of the Son of Sam shootings have already drawn criticism from the victims’ families and the born-again Christian killer himself.

But the film isn’t about the murders. It’s about fear and titillation. David Berkowitz’s murder spree — which inspired some expert to come up with the term "serial killer" — is background for a careening but intelligent study of relationships, of the breakdowns caused by paranoia and distrust. Dark-haired women are dyeing their hair blond, gangsters (like local don Ben Gazzara) are forming posses to find the killer, nightclubs are closing down for lack of business. And the tabloid business is going bonkers, local TV and print journalists in a panic to find the wildest angle. Lee plays John Jeffries, the ABC correspondent with a baby fro and styling sideburns who goes to Harlem to get "the darker perspective" on events (basically, "those white folks are crazy").

Everyone has theories. The stalker is from out of town or he’s a neighbor, he’s a Vietnam vet or a woman-hater, he lives alone or with his mother. Someone suggests — with accompanying sports footage to underline the point — that he’s Reggie Jackson, the superstar Yankee whose number is, ominously, 44. This lunacy becomes nearly unbearable when Berkowitz (Michael Badalucco) thinks he hears his neighbor’s dog talking to him and suddenly, there the dog is, big and black and digitized so that it’s actually talking, like some creepy friend of Babe’s: "I want you to kill, kill, kill!" Sheesh!

The movie leaves such madness unresolved. Bravely weird, it shows sex and violence exploding, without explanation or definition, at a time when people felt out of control, simultaneously seduced and menaced. These complications make it a troubling, unforgettable experience.

—Cindy Fuchs