Q&A with Spike Lee: When the Levees Broke
Dead bodies floating in putrid water, sick people suffering in a sewage-filled Superdome, an airport terminal-turned-emergency hospital ward. This week, director Spike Lee resurrects the images broadcast one year ago in a new documentary, When the Levees Broke, which chronicles Hurricane Katrina from start to disastrous aftermath, adding a host of new voices to familiar images. Lee takes his cameras inside FEMA-provided trailers for the displaced; he talks with victims who have contemplated suicide; he even offers videoconference footage of President Bush being briefed by hurricane experts about the enormity of Katrina's threat just before it struck. Spike Lee, now in the 20th year of his directing career, traveled to New Orleans nine times to make the film.
How soon into the disaster did you decide to make a film?
Pretty early on. I was at the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy–another city that's below sea level. And I just could not believe the images I was seeing.
The film ends with an unusual scene: a marching band performs, dancing down the street alongside a casket labeled "Katrina." What's it supposed to mean?
It's just drawn upon the jazz tradition, the jazz funeral. We wanted to have a funeral for Katrina, bury it. So we staged this modern jazz funeral through a bombed -out section of the Lower Ninth Ward.
Why did you want to bury Katrina?
Just because you bury someone doesn't mean you forget about it completely. But it's not just Katrina, it's also what came with Katrina. What came with Katrina was the breach of the levees–not necessarily Mother Nature, but the poor engineering of the Army Corps of Engineers.
This is the longest documentary HBO has ever aired–four hours. Were you afraid the film might lose momentum?
No. I knew we had enough for six great hours, and I knew what a disaster a two-hour documentary would have been. There's too much material–we wouldn't have the time to do the subject justice.
Some people have said you didn't even do the subject justice in four hours. A New Orleans Times-Picayune reporter said you only told part of the story–that you only told the stories of the Ninth Ward's victims, and left out everyone else.
We stand behind everything in the movie. He just had a problem that there were too many black people in the piece. Which is b–––-. There are many, many white New Orleanians and many white Americans in this.
Others have criticized you for airing rumors that the hurricane didn't break the levees protecting the Lower Ninth Ward, but men did, with some kind of deliberate explosion. That was done in 1927, to divert water away from other parts of the city, but there is no evidence it happened in 2005. Is it really fair to air a rumor that lacks any evidence?
All I'm doing is letting people express what they feel. Again I think [that's] b–––- criticism to try to sidetrack what is in the film. "When the Levees Broke" is not four hours of crazy black mania explaining "blew up the levees, blew up the levees, blew up the levees." Come on. That probably is like two and a half minutes out of four hours.
The film portrays New Orleans' rebuilding as a public policy catastrophe. But tens of billions of federal dollars have just opened up to victims, foundations are pouring millions of dollars into the region, volunteers have come from across the country to pitch in. What more can be done?
Right now–I just got back from New Orleans yesterday–there's still not a plan. People don't know whether they should rebuild or what to do. The levees aren't safe. It's just a messed up situation all around.
One of your subjects says repeatedly that "somebody needs to go to jail" for what happened. Do you agree?
Oh I believe it. Prison. Because–people are dead, due to negligence. Somebody should go to jail, to prison, the big house. People are dead. I'm not even talking about loss of property. I'm talking about lives. People are dead because the United States Army Corps of Engineers is not doing their job.
Who should go to jail?
Flip a coin. At this point, it'd be more symbolic than anything. I don't care. We need somebody to go. Somebody.
Well, the film calls out a lot of possible candidates: George Bush, Dick Cheney ...
They called themselves out. When the federal government takes five days to show up, George Bush takes 12 days, Condoleezza Rice is buying shoes, Dick Cheney's fly fishing–they all call themselves out with their disappearance.
They definitely get a lot of heat in this film. Did you ever try to talk to them, to give them a chance to respond?
They refused to speak.
Were you surprised?
No. I'm not stupid. They – I'd have eaten their a— up. I was ready for it. I would have been ready. If they gonna do this, they better bring their lawyers with them.