![]() Lee was similarly assertive about a dialogue scene between Frank and Jacob, which he wanted set in front of a window with views of Ground Zero. “I called up Rodrigo: ‘You've got to shoot this.’” They lit up Manhattan for five weeks, beginning in March of 2002, but Lee “didn't find out about it until the last day,” he says. In the opening credits, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto captures a montage of the mournful Tribute in Light, the art installation that projected 88 searchlights into the sky to memorialize the fallen towers. Though it functions like a short film, the monologue fits into the atmospheric tone of tragedy that Lee and Blanchard had been building throughout the movie. “He comes to the realization that it wasn’t those people, it was him-he's the one that fucked up,” Lee says. This shit is mean, and it ain’t for everybody.”īenioff conceived the monologue while reading a Christopher Smart poem, in which every line begins with the word “For.” Intrigued by its off-kilter rhythm, he “thought it would be interesting to hear Monty’s fury at his circumstances expressed in the form of a kind of manic monologue.” And yet, despite its vulgar nature, “it’s also a kind of Valentine for the city.” In many ways the rant is microcosmic of the movie itself, leading to a moment of self-awareness and personal responsibility. That's what makes New York City New York City. “Even though those things are mean and nasty and evil, in a way, the level of ignorance is funny. (He laughs that he presumed a lightning bolt would strike him down for it.) “ shows this relationship that we New Yorkers have with other people,” Lee says, noting the tensions of the city in the aftermath of the attacks. This scene, however, was “bigger and grander,” Lee says, extending to: the “Bensonhurst Italians…swinging their Jason Giami Louisville Slugger baseball bat trying to audition for The Sopranos” the “uptown brothers” playing basketball who “never pass the ball, they don’t want to play defense, they take five steps on every layup to the hoop, and then they want to turn around and blame everything on the white man” and pedophile priests, “the Church that protects them,” and “J.C., he got off easy,” the list accompanied by a shot of St. It’s a mesmerizing, feverish five minutes, reminiscent of a scene in Do The Right Thing, when Mookie and Pino get into an argument that devolves into dueling, racist descriptions of residents on their Brooklyn block. ![]() ![]() “A lesser filmmaker would have cheapened it.” “Spike handled a difficult topic adroitly-he took on the reality with all its dread and defiance,” Benioff says. But Lee didn’t want to explicitly address the attacks instead, he dexterously infused the city’s quiet, shaken mood into this 24-hour morality tale, contextualizing Monty’s decisions and self-reckoning with the visceral attitudes and imagery attached to that fateful day, like the Tribute in Light beams, FDNY memorials, and newspaper headlines. He’d written the book and the first several drafts of his script before the attacks, and “didn’t want to be involved with anything that might seem to be exploiting a tragedy that took thousands of lives,” he says in an email. Hell no.”Īt first, Benioff was skeptical of that plan. “I always felt art should reflect what's happening at the time. “This grieving, post-9/11 New York City could be a character in this film,” he thought. Moved by Monty’s regrets and reconciliations, and living in the aftermath of catastrophe, Lee began thinking bigger. In his final hours, he shares a steak dinner with his father (Brian Cox), meets his two best friends, Jacob and Frank (Phillip Seymour-Hoffman and Barry Pepper), and girlfriend Naturelle (Rosario Dawson) at a club for one last big night, and then ties up loose ends with his nefarious business partners. The film follows Monty Brogan (Edward Norton), an Upper East Side drug-dealer, on the day before he must report for a seven-year stint at an upstate penitentiary. In January of 2002, Lee had begun reading the script for what would eventually become his 14th film: 25th Hour, a drama that future Game of Thrones showrunner David Benioff had adapted from his novel published the previous year. “Like New Yorkers or Americans aren’t strong enough to see the image of the World Trade Center anymore, which I thought was fucking ridiculous. “Like it never existed,” Lee tells GQ over the phone. Deeds, as well as a trailer for the first Spider-Man. In the weeks and months following the the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Hollywood engaged in a comprehensive sanitization process, cutting out glimpses of the World Trade Center from upcoming New York-set movies like Zoolander and Mr.
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