Spike Lee

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Spike Lee Interview

Spike Lee Talks New Orleans

John Scott Lewinski

In one scene of the documentary, a Louisiana man says, “We sold our soul for the Super Bowl.” Is that a shared sentiment in the region?

Spike Lee: I never put words in peoples' mouth. That man was a fisherman -- a shrimper. A working man. His father was a shrimper. His grandfather was a shrimper. All he knows is shrimping. And now, he can’t shrimp because of BP. He’s looking at the end of his way of life.

So many people are trying to be philosophical. They had Katrina. They won the Super Bowl. They had the BP spill. They’re asking, "Why us?" So there is a lot of gallows humor down there.

The documentary was originally intended to document the status of New Orleans’ ongoing recovery. What point was production at when the BP spill happened?

SL: We were done shooting. We had to rethink everything. We went back seven times after the spill to get more footage. And we watched as BP controlled the situation. It's really eye-opening the power that BP has. There's no way it should be dictating what's going on down there. But it shows the power of the company.

Is there a common theme in the film and how the disasters affect the working men of New Orleans?

SL: [The problems in Louisiana] are all about greed. Greed is building the levees as cheaply as possible so they fail during Katrina. Greed is BP not wanting to buy this blowout protector that only cost half a million dollars. It doesn’t make sense to me.

We should know by now that anytime you try to cut corners, it winds up biting you. Now, 11 people are dead because BP threw safety precautions out the window. They have been lying from the get-go. And it’s greed. We’ve got people who get elected who lie down and pray at the altar of the almighty dollar.

Can anything be done in the short-term to help the people you examine in the documentary?

SL: It would help if people remembered that there are still people exiled who want to return to New Orleans. There’s 150,000 refugees still in the Houston area. We shouldn’t think that the Super Bowl made things right for New Orleans.

Time after time (the city of New Orleans and its people) are knocked down. But they get up. They pull themselves off the canvas. But they're only human beings, and I worry about another hurricane or disaster hitting them.

They've survived a lot, and may still have a lot left to survive. And that's the message of the title: "It's hope -- and cross your fingers, too."

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