The New Yorker Radio Hour - Spike Lee on the Knicks’ Resurgence

Episode Date: May 28, 2021

Spike Lee is one of the most passionate and committed fans of the New York Knicks—not to mention one of the most celebrated filmmakers of our time. Underdogs for many years, the Knicks are enjoying a renaissance, and Lee is in his glory. David Remnick and Vinson Cunningham called Lee to talk about a life of fandom, the politics of activism in the N.B.A. and the N.F.L., and Lee’s multipart documentary about life in New York since September 11th, which will be released to mark the twentieth anniversary of the attacks. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Spike Lee has made some 25 feature films, most recently to Five Bloods. He's one of the pioneers of independent film, and his catalog includes some of the most important movies ever made about race. Lee is finishing a multi-part documentary for HBO, a portrait of a city called NYC Epicenters, 9-9-11 to 2021 and a half. Along with his love of New York, Spike Lee is famous for his front row passion for basketball. And I caught up with him this week, along with my colleague Vincent Cunningham, to talk about the long-awaited Renaissance, the return of quality pro basketball in the hoop-hungry city of New York. The next orange-blue skies, we're on to come up. We're on to come up.

Now, I've got to ask you, and I think Vincent feels the same way, have you felt this way in a very, very long time about New York basketball. It's been a long, long time. Well, it's been eight years since the last time we were in the playoffs, so eight years is a long time. But I like the grit of this team, love what Coach Tibbs is doing and the potential. and I think that what Durant said that the next aren't cool

anymore that is not the case now that is cold that is cold yeah how did it feel in the garden the other day

it sounded amazing on TV it was a it sounded amazing on television that you must know how it felt to be in the garden 15,000 of people sound like it was 30,000. But let me just say Nick teams forever

have never done it easy. We always got to do it the hard way. And I just expect that this series. I never, for once, thought that Nick's going to sweep the hawks. You know, Spike, may you live to be 150 and make many, many more movies. But when and if you ever leave the Mortal Coil, your obituary will say not only one of the

great filmmakers of his time, but the great basketball fan of his time. And I've always tried to imagine... How that guy getting the Hall of Fame ahead of me? I always tried to imagine Alfred Hitchcock court side. You need two seats. One of the YouTube channels or whatever it was focused on you during Game One of the Knicks against the Hawks and you're up and down emotions and up and down emotions. And all I had to think was, you must have been as tired as a player at the end of the game. Well, I've been blessed.

They'd be positioned to sit courtside. And there's no other event, a sport event, even behind the dugout or the home plate, the baseball, you're far away. Football, but court side, you're right there. They pushed it. It's a little back further than usually just because of COVID. I'm not complaining.

And interaction you have with players. And people don't, I'm not there to taunt. I don't taunt. I just like, before the game. Just a little. No, no, no. Oh, come on. I don't taunt. I said, Mrs. Schott, that's not taunting.

I'm yelling at the refs. That's not taunting. Our magazine ran a cover that had some, well, it was the only basketball theme cover I can really remember recently. and there were some nets toward the front and some nicks toward the back. I saw on your Instagram that you did a little bit of editing to change the focus of that cover. Could you tell us about that? Well, it was disrespectful.

Yeah, I've got the text to prove it. I got text from Spike saying and he moved it around. So with the technology of Photoshop, we did so repurposing. Spike is fired up y'all well Michael Jordan hits a three-pointer from about 30 feet then looks over to Spike Lee and gives him the look like that's the nail of the coffin of the bye bye Reggie Miller in an animated discussion with Spike Lee

who is an ardent Nick fan and has a Who did? Who did? That's right, who's it? It looked like Spike was getting ready to get into his jump shot there. Well, you can see him from a mile away with that sweater. Spike, you're currently working on a documentary that looks at tragedies and the struggles that we faced from 9-11. As New Yorkers.

As New Yorkers, exactly. From 9-11 to the coronavirus. And it just makes me wonder, how does your sports fandom play into all of that? How does it help during these rough times? Well, I don't. watched one single game during the bubble. I just couldn't do it. And

this past Super Bowl was the first year I watched a football game since the No Freedom League did dirty to my brother Kaepernick. I only watched

Super Bowl because I wanted a brother man to beat Tom Brady. That had happened. Clearly, the NBA was a center of really serious discussion about racial inequity and racism and George Floyd. It's the most progressive sports league there is. And I have to give Adam Silver a lot of credit for that. Why is there such a contrast between the NFL that what you're calling the No Freedom League, National Football League, and the NBA? In that sense.

Because players have more of power because of the contrast. The league is predominantly African-American. And Adam Stern is much more aggressive than Roger Goodell. I mean, think about that statement where Goodell fessed up, how they messed up, how they didn't listen. And they didn't even mention Capnick's name. I mean, that's some bullshit. Straight up. I just

I just wanted Then that's also you know a year ago yesterday you know this we're talking about so

yeah the bubble is right in the middle of that and there was serious discussions amongst the brothers and the rest of the players league

whether they should continue to play or not so this all happened at the same time you mentioned a year ago and how much George Floyd

Floyd's death kind of changed the trajectory of last year, even in the middle of the coronavirus. Yeah. It changed the world. It changed the world. And we have a sequence in the documentary where we show clips of protest all over this globe, all over this world, countries, all over this world, cities all this world. And white people, my white sister brothers, over the general. of all these protests and sins around the world that happened. Spike, last year, late last year, you presented an award, a Penn Benenson Courage Award to

Darnella Frazier. That was the young woman who filmed George Floyd's murder. And that video was absolutely instrumental in the conviction of Derek Chauvin, the police officer who killed George Floyd. Did you have a chance to talk with Darnella? No, and in fact, we were trying to get in this documentary, but we've been unsuccessful so far. But that was a great act of courage and love. And it was really sad that even with police cameras, where she murders, at some instances, you know, these, I know the thing in North Carolina, where they didn't want to, you know, the just didn't want to, the tape released.

So what's the purpose of having these policemen, police women, police people have cameras, and then in the court system, they're not allowed,

they're not shared with the public. That's defeating the purpose, I think. Now, but you, look, you've been around for a while and not just sports history, but history history. And I,

I wonder a year later, a year later after the murder of George Floyd, do you sense that all the gestures, all the reading lists, all the corporate goodwill and demonstrations in earnest, is that going to have a lasting effect or will we move back to status quo? I'll give you one of my favorite saints, David. We shall see what we shall see. Welcome to Madison Square Garden, the world's most famous arena. It's time for round one, game one of the 2021 NBA playoffs. So last Sunday's playoff game against the Hawks was also the biggest indoor gathering

New York has held since the pandemic started with 15,000 people in the stands. And so when you see more people back out in the streets, getting back to one another, I don't know, do you have some wishes for New York as we call? coming back together in public space? Yeah, we got to just, you know, this pan, one thing that people I think are inestimating is as far as a pandemic goes, Corona, is the mental instability that has really made people lose it. And a lot of these people who are mental unstable are the homeless, not just New York City,

but all over the world. you know, people on the streets. And so far, to best my knowledge, we've not had an answer for it. And it's really had an effect on the homeless. And 20 years from now, there will be reports on how this world became unstable mentally because of the pandemic. We don't even know now, but it's going to report. films,

documentaries are going to deal with how the mental health of human beings changed. You see it in your own surroundings, in your office, in Fort Green all around you?

Yeah, I mean, homeless is everywhere. And then you can't escape the headlines of the dailies or somebody being pushed from the train. or people being killed by wayward bullets. Asian Americans attacked, now Jewish Americans attacked. Black people, brown people still get killed by law enforcement.

So there's a lot of stuff that's still with this as we get back to normalcy. And I put close on that because we get back to normal. It was fucked up. You know, when it was normal. We got to try to get to a place, this is my opinion. We have to try to get a place that's moving forward to where it was. We want to go back to the same bullshit that we had before this thing happened, in my opinion. That would admit that we don't learn anything from this.

we have to understand that there are lessons to be learned when we have to apply that moving forward I really find it hard to believe that

it took the pandemic to understand that these things have been with us it just didn't show up you just weren't paying you weren't paying attention or you didn't give a fuck

on that happy note, Spike Go Nix Or to Blue Skies Go Nix I'll be looking for you on the stamp tonight Spike Lee If you haven't seen all of his movies Get to it

And Vincent Cunningham Is a staff writer at The New Yorker His first novel is coming out next year I'm David Remnick And that's our program for this week Thank you for listening See you next time The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrado. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Carrillo, Riannon, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, Annabelle, and Stephen Valentino, with help from Alison McAdam, Meng Faye Chen, and Emily Mann. Our show this week was engineered by Harrison Keithline. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Trina Endowment Fund.