In the beginning of JUNGLE FEVER, the camera cranes from the window of a brownstone building into its bedroom to reveal that a man and a woman is making love, immediately calls up Hitchcock’s PSYCHO (1960), while their after-the-earth-moves chitchat imitates it is an extramarital affair (“don’t wake up your daughter!”), but mischievously, the pair actually is a married couple, Flipper Purify (a spiffy Snipes plays a soft-centered intellectual, a far cry from his usual muscle-bound screen image), is an African-American architect working in a white folks corporation, and his light-skinned wife Drew (McKee) is a Bloomingdale’s saleswoman, even their preteen daughter has a very salutary knowledge about the birds and the bees, Spike Lee, for once, veers into the fast lane of Yuppies in Harlem.

But the presentiment of an affaire du c?ur has been insidiously set off (a virile Flipper seems insatiable and over-confident in his sex appeal), and the consequential interracial one comes about quite wantonly, Flipper, whose life is the paragon of domestic bliss and high-flying stability, the stimulus of his adultery instantly baffles the audience, off which director Spike Lee doesn’t blow the lid until the very end, as for his paramour, the Italian-American temp secretary Angie Tucci (Sciorra), obviously is fed up to the back teeth of her tedious existence, bogged down in the chores at home and an unfruitful and dead-end romance with the shiftless Paulie Carbone (John Turturro, another sterling interpretation of a put-upon man’s simmering indignation), audience can vicariously relate to her plight, as the fling with Flipper can be an easy reprieve for her, and she has no qualms about that.

That is one reason why JUNGLE FEVER is startlingly perspicacious in the gender differentiation, while a man is a feral being and can cop off at will, a woman needs more backstory ballast to take the plunge, and from stem to stern Sciorra is defiantly cool in her demeanor, to a point she even looks too frigid to be committed to the libido-driven abandon, even she has to run the gauntlet of domestic abuse, sit through a bitter homily of whore-mongering, and realizes that their fling is nothing but a false hope to take a new leaf on her life. That said, in the end of the day, Angie’s baptism of fire feels shortchanged when her story takes a back seat, as Lee, scarcely lauded for his feminist felicity, has other irons in the fire.

Deep-rooted racism, which sadly has not been ameliorated since then in the States, is granted a wider canvas in scope here, not just because the complication of the scandalous fornication, which both participants finally admit what makes them tick is the titular fever, an euphemism of sexual curiosity towards other race, other than that four-letter-word, but also through other byplays: reverse discrimination in the working place is touched on; Drew and her friends perfervidly vent their collective frustration as black women of different gradations of pigmentation and doubts about black men; Paulie, on the other hand, has his own interest in an amicable black girl Orin Goode (Ferrell), in spite of the pervading racism both at home and among his neighborly acquaintances, that milieu is a closer sibling to Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING (1989), bar the firebrand commotion in the climax.

The truth is, there is another violent sting in the tail, but that doesn’t concern racism and it occurs behind the closed door, that manifests the topos rampant among the key demographic, the drug addiction, yes, the Purify family has a black sleep, the firstborn of The Good Reverend Doctor Purify and his wife (Davis and Dee, both as expected, are terrific as a stern father and a doting mother, respectively), Flipper’s elder brother Gator Purify (Jackson), is an out-and-out hophead who spends the whole film soliciting money from his kindred, a breakthrough turn from Jackson which notably earned him an acting award in Cannes, not for BEST ACTOR, but a special BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (an award they don’t accord annually), here Jackson is so lived-in in that jittery, jacked, importunate state as to dwarf Halle Berry’s big screen debut as Gator’s fellow crackhead into affected rants of profanity, and Lee also vehemently ram the hellscape of a crackhouse into every viewer’s throat, if that doesn’t dissuade you from shunning the substance abuse, nothing ever will.

referential entries: Lee’s DO THE RIGHT THING (1989, 8.3/10); Charles Burnett’s TO SLEEP WITH ANGER (1990, 7.4/10).

In Spike Lee’s production filmwork of “Jungle Fever'', a tragic story calling out the struggles and hardships of inter-racial romance (in this context, a black versus white romantic relationship, or to be more direct, a love affair in its very essence) has been presented and shown to its audiences, which is apparently also the first ever time cross-race romance has became one of the most important main/central focus topics of the director (the audiences could be able to tell this from watching the preceding film piece of “Mo’ Better Blues”, which Lee happened to touch a bit on this topic as a sideline or side plot). However, this specific filmwork is indeed way more than simply/merely being a sad tale of a failed inter-racial romance at work, but should rather be interpreted and seen as something which goes/dwelves way deeper than that of the surface value, that it is about the steady and firm racial barriers that have been intentionally built/constructed up, as the sense of high walls/tall upper fences being constructed between the dominant group (Caucasian whites) and minority races (in the specific case of this particular movie, African Americans) lasting from generations ago until now at this current point, as well as about the subtly covert, yet without a question deep-rooted racism that is also long-lasting and apparently still on-going, which by itself could probably be easiest to tell and observe within the seemingly normal day-to-day interactions between different races themselves, resulting and arising from that crawling uneasy feeling, which cannot be tracked to its very origin with clear certainty.

On the outside surface or simply based on first impression, as a quite successful businessman living in/residing within the busting Big Apple himself, Flipper has nearly everything going for him, at least that was the case before he met with Angie, an attractive Italian-American young woman who was being introduced to the cooperation to work with him. But as one could still sense somewhat, maybe it is the case that there were already previous cracks existing in the marriage itself, or maybe Flipper has simply gotten a bit bored out by the unchanging daily routines of the married life, anyways, he has later gotten himself into this total “guilty-pleasure” like affair with his co-worker Angie, whom he has only known for a rather short period of time, and which drastically changed/altered his entire life path to a different direction. Throughout this entire film piece here, Spike Lee has mainly and mostly casted his focus/attention on the specific class of people who are usually referred to as the “working class whites”, and his heavily concentrated portrayals of them are not much of positive ones, but rather, more in a critical manner and light. This can be clearly seen within a lot of different scenes coming from the film itself, especially that one particular scene of the so-called “war committee/council” - when Flipper happens to have a huge disagreement, argument, and quarrel with two of his Caucasian co-workers in a private office meeting/conference setting within the corporation which he works at, which the argument keeps on escalating to the next level, which made/urged Flipper to be saying something like “I can see that you guys have absolutely no respect for me” straight to the other men’s faces, and then walked out on them. The actual selfishness/self-centeredness, or perhaps, “racial ego’ which these two white co-workers happen to carry with them has been revealed through this particular scene depicting the certain conflict which happened, although in a quite subtle and covert sense, but is still possible to spot. It is indeed “racial prejudice'' in its best and most appropriate description, in a social situation where the three men are each supposed to be status equal with each other. That is exactly the reason why the specific racial approach of so-called “colorblindness” could oftentimes be unimaginably harming and dangerous, because as human beings altogether living in a colorblind society that way, for sure without a doubt creates more of the excuses for whites in general to deny their internal racism/racist attitudes/racial ego or prejudice which ultimately results in the subtle/covert mis-treatments of other minority races out there, exactly like what Flipper happened to experience with and go through within this specific scene himself.

As generations pass by and as the society progressively develops, one obvious cultural phenomenon or pattern that could be easily seen and observed, is the seemingly “l(fā)essening’ of racial discriminations/racial mis-treatments out there within the general social environment as a whole, but this feeling by itself could be merely an illusion or a false sense of assumption, for the actual reality and truth is that, most often times for the current era, what we happen to see and experience the most are, that of the old and medieval cases of direct outward actions in terms of physical harms/violences being inflicted upon minority group individuals back then centuries ago, have since being replaced/exchanged by, as well as switched to a brand new form of very much subtly covert racial discriminations, which is being embedded within almost each and every corner of the 21st century modern society, despite and no matter of our own personal degree/level of recognitions, awarenesses, or better judgments to those different situations and circumstances out there. As a possible result, the most reasonable as well as logical conclusion which could be drawn from that, would thus probably be something that goes like this: There is still indeed, a long long way to go as well as mountains after mountains to climb, awaiting ahead for all of us here being as collective homo sapiens/human beings living on this earth, at least in terms of the general racial equity aspects and sides of things for sure.

看了一個黑人導演Spike Lee的電影《叢林熱》，講的是美國種族歧視的故事，電影不是簡單的表現(xiàn)一種美國種族歧視的惡劣環(huán)境，而是展示這種被歧視的惡劣環(huán)境反過來對人所造成的深入骨髓的毒害。在一種惡劣的環(huán)境下，最巨大的傷害可能并不是你在現(xiàn)實中被剝奪了什么，而是那種剝奪給人心靈造成的深深的傷害。而你常常被非常巨大的傷害而不自知。 貧富差距，城里人和鄉(xiāng)下人，黑人和白人，身高長相，專制政治，物質(zhì)追求與精神追求的荒謬對立等等，這些因素都能在一個惡劣的社會環(huán)境中給人的心靈造成深深的傷害。被傷害的人可能會變得敏感，多疑，脆弱，易怒，偏激，怨恨，冷漠，自暴自棄或者攻擊性很強。 當你處處疑心提防、在暴怒中爭取你的權利，并認為你正在捍衛(wèi)自己的尊嚴時，事實上你應經(jīng)被毀了。你深受傷害的心靈離你本要追求的快樂生活越來越遠。面對不公，憤怒或者冷嘲是必須的，但這種憤怒應該是一種發(fā)自健康的身心的非常理所當然的憤怒或者冷嘲，不存在深重的壓抑、憋屈，和冷漠。 我認為一個人在一個惡劣的環(huán)境，惡劣的時代，應該讓自己變得更硬朗些，更善于思考一些，排開偏見，明辨是非，如此才能盡量減少種種惡劣對自己心靈造成的傷害而保持健康。否則你將可能變成這個惡劣的環(huán)境和時代惡劣而悲劇的一部分。

要是沒有這場疫情，對于影迷來講，最近最火的新聞是什么呢？

當然是戛納電影節(jié)了。

我記得當時官方宣布斯派克·李為今年戛納電影節(jié)的評審團主席時，國內(nèi)網(wǎng)友清一色地“政治正確言論”。

第一次聽說斯派克·李的大名是在2019年的奧斯卡上，他執(zhí)導的《黑色黨徒》獲得最佳原創(chuàng)劇本獎。

首先聲明，《黑色黨徒》這部電影我很喜歡。

后面的獎項陸續(xù)揭曉，《綠皮書》最終拿下了最佳影片的桂冠。

斯派克·李在典禮結束之后，對最大贏家《綠皮書》不屑一顧。

當時的我，想當然地把這位導演劃為“檸檬精”一類。

直到看過了他執(zhí)導的黑人電影和種族電影，我收回原來的話。

斯派克·李，好萊塢最為知名的黑人導演。

作為一名黑人導演，他拍出來的黑人電影、種族電影，更加真實。

因此，除了奧斯卡，他在三大電影節(jié)上也頗受歡迎，尤其是戛納。

斯派克·李的《黑色黨徒》曾獲得過戛納評審會大獎；

在這之前，他有一部電影，雖然沒有拿下金棕櫚或者評審團大獎，但在那屆的戛納電影節(jié)上，這部電影的風頭一時無兩。

這部電影就是1991年在第44屆戛納電影節(jié)主競賽單元提名的《叢林熱》。

電影的主人公是黑人Flip和白人Angie。

兩人在一家公司辦公，一來二往、情不自已、互生情愫。

當Angie的父親得知自己的女兒和一個黑人上床后，怒不可遏，將Angie痛打一頓，掃地出門；

Flip的父母是牧師，倒不像Angie的父親一樣粗魯。但文人有文人的辦法，在宴席上，F(xiàn)lip的父親一席話，讓Angie很是下不來臺。

許多人以為美國的種族歧視只是白人對黑人，殊不知，黑人對白人亦是如此。

兩人頂著身邊的壓力依舊在一起，那個時候，他們相信愛情能戰(zhàn)勝一切。

可在一個晚上，兩人在市區(qū)里打打鬧鬧，卻引來了警察。

差一點，F(xiàn)lip就成了警察的槍下之鬼。

兩人愛得死去活來，可身邊的人卻水火不容，發(fā)生的種種令兩人的關系接近破裂。

Flip分手時，和Angie說了這么一句話：

“愛情可以戰(zhàn)勝一切，那只會出現(xiàn)在迪士尼電影里?！?/span>

夢想很豐滿，現(xiàn)實很骨感。

最后，F(xiàn)lip回歸自己的家庭，Angie和自己的加入和好，這一切就像是一場夢，留下的只是醒來后的感動。

《叢林熱》與《綠皮書》大相徑庭。

如果作為一個旁觀者的角色，看《綠皮書》這樣的電影當然賞心悅目。

但深入了解美國的種族文化之后，你就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，《綠皮書》只是一碗雞湯。

現(xiàn)實生活中大多數(shù)的人都是像《叢林熱》里的人一樣。

畢竟，美國的種族主義從19世紀末開始，一直到現(xiàn)在，已經(jīng)200多年了。

冰凍三尺非一日之寒，若想冰化，是不是還需下一個200年。

我們中國人沒有經(jīng)歷過種族歧視這樣的黑暗時刻，所以，我們想當然的把關于”黑人“的一切理解為政治正確。

斯派克·李的電影里從來不避諱黑人的惡。

作為一個黑人導演，他很清楚黑人的性格、受教育程度以及所處的環(huán)境。

于是在他的電影里，黑人張揚跋扈、游手好閑、惹是生非。

有人看完他的電影對黑人的態(tài)度進一步惡化。

比如，在他的電影《為所應為》的頁面下，有這么一句評論：

“一幫人，不讀書，酗酒發(fā)瘋，然后到20歲的時候走上街頭問‘為什么不給我工作’！”

《為所應為》里的三個黑人。

一個成天扛著大喇叭，到處擾民；

一個非要在人家意大利的披薩店里掛黑人的頭像；

一個領著別人的工資，卻不干事，最后還把老板店鋪給砸了。

確實，剛看完這部電影，的確有很氣憤，但仔細想想事情并沒有那么簡單。

我把美國的黑人比作中國的農(nóng)村人。

關于中國的農(nóng)村人，有兩種截然不同的看法。

一些人認為農(nóng)村人善良、淳樸；也有一些人說“窮山惡水出刁民”。

持有前者想法的大多都是城里人，他們可能在農(nóng)村待過一小段時間，于是，就產(chǎn)生了這樣的想法；

后者的簇擁者大部分是從農(nóng)村走出去的人，他們生長于斯，所以，他們很清楚農(nóng)村人到底是一群什么樣的人。

中國有好多現(xiàn)實主義題材的影片都是講述“窮山惡水出刁民”的。

《鬼子來了》、《天狗》、《盲山》、《光棍兒》等等。

看完這類型電影的人，也會想當然地把農(nóng)村人妖魔化。

其實不然。

“窮山惡水出刁民”，這是一種現(xiàn)象，那造成這種現(xiàn)象的背后是什么呢？

“窮山惡水”代表的是什么？是物質(zhì)基礎差。

當物質(zhì)基礎尚且沒有得到保障時，又怎么能夠“知禮節(jié)”呢？

所以說，我們應該講的是“為什么窮山惡水出刁民”，而不是一味地強調(diào)“窮山惡水出刁民”。

美國的黑人亦然。

觀眾只看到了電影里的黑人的惡，沒有深究黑人惡的背后是什么。

黑人的居住環(huán)境、黑人的家庭狀況，黑人的受教育程度，黑人的受教育資源，黑人的合法權益等等。

這些都是問題。

不看斯派克·李，你不會了解黑人的生活狀態(tài)究竟是怎樣？

不看斯派克·李，你永遠不知道美國社會的割裂有多嚴重；

不看斯派克·李，你永遠不懂美國的種族隔閡！