USA,
1986, 100 min
Shown in 1986
CREDITS
- dir
-
Spike Lee
- scr
-
Spike Lee
- cam
-
Ernest Dickerson
- editor
-
Spike Lee
- cast
-
Tracey Camilla Johns, Redmond Hicks, John Terrell, Spike Lee
- source
-
Forty Acres and a Mule, Brooklyn, N.Y.
- premiere
-
World Premiere
-
COMMENTS
Spike Lee, Bill Lee, Tommy Redmond Hicks in person.
OTHER
After one stint of celibacy and another of monogamy, Nola Darling knows two things for sure: She’s gotta have it and she’s no “one-man woman.” In his second feature, Spike Lee (Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, SFIFF, 1983) focuses on Nola, whose decidedly cavalier attitude provokes lots of reaction, especially from the three men forced to share her. Grier is the self-absorbed GQ aspirant who considers Nola his Brooklyn-based Pygmalion project. B-Boy Mars Blackmon (played by Lee) is the hip-hopper in high-tops whose primary aspiration is to keep Nola laughing. Jamie, by far the most stable and romantic (and ultimately aggressive) of the lot, sees Nola as the ideal woman with whom to spend forever. What distresses Nola’s men is not the voraciousness of her libido but its utter disregard for mutual exclusivity. From Nola’s perspective, the parts are only as good as the whole. As told by friends, lovers, family and the woman herself, Nola’s story confronts with candor and frequent humor the double standard by which sexual relationships of men and women are judged. She’s Gotta Have It features music by Bill Lee (Spike’s father) and cinematography by Ernest Dickerson, who shot Brother From Another Planet and Krush Groove.
FACTOID #68
Stanley Mosk, who later became a California state Supreme Court Justice, served as the general chairman at the 1967 Festival.
