Taste of Spike, Part 1
I interviewed Spike Lee about his powerful, important new HBO documentary, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts, about Hurricane Katrina and its shameful aftermath. The doc debuts Monday and Tuesday nights on HBO (there's a giant premiere tonight [Wednesday] in New Orleans), and my story appears this Sunday in the TV magazine of the New York Post. Meanwhile, here's a foretaste, one of several audio snippets from that interview.
Despite amassing 500 hours of footage and 100 interviews, edited down to a four-part, four-hour tapestry of human misery and government incompetence (if not worse), Lee regrets not being able to locate the woman who had the balls to shame Condoleeza Rice as the Secretary of State was blithely trying on pricey shoes at Ferragamo while, as Lee puts it, "people were drowning."
Listen to Spike's one regret ...
Lee was kind enough to agree to this interview, even though he and I have been, uh, on the outs for about 15 years. More on this and other simmering celebrity grudges in future posts.
Photo by Jami Bernard