Director Spike Lee showed himself badly hit by the storm on the Capitol in a video message at an awards ceremony. He believes Donald Trump will end up on the wrong side of history “with people like Hitler”.
On Sunday, the New York Film Critics Circle invited to the award ceremony for the 86th time – and for the first time digitally. Director and screenwriter Spike Lee received a special award for his short film “New York, New York”, which he initially published on Instagram at the beginning of the corona pandemic in May 2020.
He recorded his acceptance speech on January 6, the memorable day on which supporters of the elected President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in Washington. The 63-year-old was hit hard by these impressions in the video – and blamed Trump for the riots. He drew a daring comparison: “This President, President Agent Orange, will go down in history with people like Hitler.”
Referring to the day of the recording, Spike Lee stated, “This is a very sad day in American history.” He sees the US’s reputation as damaged. “The whole world is laughing at the United States of America, the so-called cradle of democracy.” His country was at a crossroads and it was important to ensure security now. “This is not a game. These people have guns with ammunition,” said the concerned director about the violent mob. “I hope to God I’m wrong,” Lee said, but people would be killed because of this “bullshit”. Trump and “all of his boys” would go down on the wrong side of history.
At least the award ceremony itself should have been cause for joy for Spike Lee. Martin Scorsese, who was born in New York, was another star director who gave a humorous eulogy and alluded to the title, which seemed “very familiar” to him. Scorsese’s joke alluded to his own 1977 film, also called “New York, New York”. “Thank you for helping all of New Yorkers through this time,” Scorsese concluded.
But that’s not all: Spike Lee’s second film from 2020, the war drama “Da 5 Bloods”, also received two individual awards. Delroy Lindo was named Best Actor, Chadwick Boseman – posthumously – Best Supporting Actor. Boseman died on August 28, 2020 at the age of 43 from complications from colon cancer.
Source: teleschau – der mediendienst GmbH –
