–How does the “Dutch Angle” function to assert power in Do the Right Thing?
Georgia Kraus
In Spike Lee’s 1989 film “Do The Right Thing,” the usage of the dutch angle shots symbolizes conflict throughout the neighborhood while also asserting and detracting power from certain characters depending on which angle the camera tilts. By using different degrees and directions of the tilt, Spike Lee insinuates the character’s argumentative stance. Throughout the film, shots focusing on Sal and his boys, Vito and Pino tilt downward and almost always on the same angle titled more to the left. On the contrary, whenever Radio Raheem, Buggin Out, Mookie, or other black characters from the neighborhood, the camera is tilted slightly more to the right, usually from a closer angle. The dutch angle on all the characters display confrontation and offer a visual representation of power in that it “creates[s] rather disruptive effects” (Bordwell and Thompson 188).
Disorienting the audience, the dutch angles represent chaos and conflict of powers. The close shots with a dutch angle on Radio Raheem convey him as a powerful being with a “threatening demeanor” (Bordwell and Thompson 412). After his death, the usage of the dutch angle seems to disappear throughout the film’s shots, representing his ultimate loss of any power he may have had as a black man. No other characters are filmed with the use of dutch angles after the riot either representing the climax of the confrontational nature of the film has ended. After Radio Raheem’s murder, the audience no longer feels the power of which Radio Raheem was inspired to fight, and power therefore which he embodied. Rather, the audience mourns him and the glimmer of hope that he and the neighborhood inspired.
India Tehranchi
The way Lee portrays the characters through his usage of the “Dutch Angle” signifies their internal power struggles and the ones they have with society, and how they resist the community’s overarching power sources. The dutch angle is a cinematic style in which the camera is tilted at an unconventional angle, assembling the characters in a non-traditional way. Height becomes a critical factor in the dutch rise, usually representing some power – who is at a higher point in the shot and the lower threshold. There is also a level of confrontation with the Dutch angle. Many characters in the film are being confronted by their privilege and power, but so is the viewer. He can create a level of discomfort in the viewer by having such a severe confrontation with the camera through the “Dutch Angle.” With that discomfort that comes with some of the angle shots that Lee chooses, there is also a viewer’s deep emotional response.
Because such an imminent theme and message in the film is “fight the power,” Lee uses the angles to show certain characters challenging the powers that be. We see this most ardently through Radio Raheem and Sal’s relationship in the scene when he goes into the pizza shop to get some food and is playing the song “fight the power.” Sal asks him to turn his music off multiple times and defines it as “African” and “Jungle-like.” For this scene, Lee uses “The Dutch Angle” to depict Radio Rahem confronting Sal’s power and racism. Gibson writes about this in his essay “Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, “The fight between Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn), a symbol of 1980s hip- hop youth culture and Sal, a white, working-class pizza owner prideful of his Italian heritage, platforms the emotional tensions surrounding racial-ethnic interactions in a primarily Black American neighborhood” (184). Sal, being a white man, has more power in society than Raheem does, but through this angle, we see Raheem’s strife to fight his power and privilege.
Cindy Wang
In Do the Right Thing, the Dutch Angle is used to increase the amount of unease and disorientation viewers feel during very intense and stressful scenes. By doing this, the film is able to make viewers feel more extreme emotions and therefore feel more immersed in the film’s world. Lee’s use of the Dutch Angle puts a different perspective on events that are happening and this allows him to better show the unease of the block and the racial tensions that existed during that time.
The Dutch Angle asserts power particularly during scenes with Radio Raheem., the first character introduced with the Dutch Angle. Right away, Radio Raheem is set apart from the other characters, which foreshadows his future importance in the film. His role is what Gibson refers to as “a bad-man image” (Gibson, pg. 193). Lee’s presentation of Radio Raheem, from a lower angle that magnifies Raheem’s stature, makes Radio Raheem appear more intimidating and represent “a form of resistance to indoctrination by mainstream society.”
Works Cited
Lee, Spike, director. Do the Right Thing. Universal Pictures, 1989, Accessed 15 Oct. 2020.
Gibson, Casarae L. ““Fight the Power”: Hip Hop and Civil Unrest in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing.” Black Camera 8.2 (2017): 183-207.