Leave it to Spike Lee to explode the typical high-stakes remake. His new film, Highest 2 Lowest, which opened Friday, flips Akira Kurosawa’s mannered 1963 staple, High and Low, into a rowdy, topical, laugh-out-loud romp (starring Denzel Washington, Jeffrey Wright, and A$AP Rocky) that’s as beautifully jarring as a dissonant sax solo. On a recent call from New York, Lee invokes the analogy himself: “Denzel and I in this film — we’re jazz musicians. We respect Julie Andrews singing ‘My Favorite Things.’ But when John Coltrane did it, you know, or when Miles did his standard of ‘My Funny Valentine,’ it’s a different thing. And that’s why I call this a reinterpretation and not a remake.”
Lee, of course, has been repositioning our world — always to provocative effect — for close to four decades. Since his hit 1986 indie She’s Gotta Have it, his offbeat humor and peripatetic lens have imbued his characters with a salient, mock-heroic grace, foregrounding open notions of Black identity which feel eminently relatable. Still, he rejects the idea that he’s a visionary. “Look, people gonna say what they want, but for me, my choice would be storyteller,” he says.
Those stories are incredible. More than any other director of his ilk, Lee has persistently brought arthouse sensibilities to the mainstream. His most arresting movies are about everyday folks living out their lives in a Chekovian, destiny-in-lowercase dynamic. There’s a painterly aspect to each of his films, where quiet transcendence aligns with larger-than-life chutzpah.
Highest 2 Lowest continues that friction, giving viewers both a cinephilic treasure trove and a sympathetic Bronx hero in Washington’s David King, a music mogul whose status and wealth make him and his brood the prey of an obsessive kidnapper. Rolling Stone spoke with Lee about his interpretation of this story, working with Denzel and A$AP, meeting Kurosawa, and more.
What do you think your artistic vision brings out in such a big star like Denzel?
I don’t have . . . That’s him. That’s D. You know, here’s the thing, though. He’s the star. He’s Jordan and I’m Pippen. [Laughs.] But it’s a team. You know, this is our fifth joint together, in order: Mo Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man, which was done — it didn’t feel like it was 18 years ago. Denzel said the same thing. But there was . . . we didn’t have to relearn. I mean, it was like it was yesterday. So, I’m just happy that we got to do it again.
The classic idea of the leading man seems almost opposed to your work. Do you agree with that?
I don’t think that. I know what you’re trying to say, because I’ve been very successful with the ensemble pieces. . . . But the five films I’ve done with Denzel have been very successful, too. So, I go with the flow, you know? And, you know, that just can’t be booty [laughs] with Denzel in one of my joints. So, you gotta do what you gotta do.
You took on a giant this time, updating Akira Kurosawa’s High and Low. Why did you choose to reinterpret this film?
One of the reasons I love this Kurosawa joint is that it deals with morality. What will people do when they’re put in certain situations? You gotta remember, a writer named Ed McBain [a pen name for Evan Hunter, born Salvatore Lombini] wrote it [the novel King’s Ransom, on which High and Low was based]. So this was an American novel first, then Kurosawa adapted it into a film. I really wanted to get out there that this is not a remake. It’s more than that. At the same time, respecting the source, the book, and the film. Kurosawa is one of the giants of cinema and one of my favorite filmmakers — and I got to meet him too! You know, I’m a collector, and one of the things I treasure the most is a beautiful portrait of Akira Kurosawa, which he signed for me. And he signed his autographs with the paintbrush of white ink. So I looked at that thing many times while I was shooting this film. [Laughs.] One of the great filmmakers of all time.
The film I first saw in film school, NYU graduate film school, which is where I first got to see world cinema, was Rashomon. It’s a film where there’s a murder and a rape and, he, Kurosawa, leads the audience to believe who’s telling the truth. I used that premise for my first film, She’s Gotta Have It. We have Nola Darling, and she has three boyfriends, and the three boyfriends talk about, you know, who this woman is. And she’s talking about these three boyfriends she has at the same time.
Do you think that there’s more pressure on you to portray what’s dignified and regal about the Black experience, and sell that to the larger culture?
No, I don’t put that type of pressure on me. And Black folks are not one monolithic group. We don’t all do everything and think alike. So I’ve never — or tried not to get mad. You know, when I get heat from my sisters and brothers . . . My sisters and brothers in Chicago, they did not like [Lee’s Chicago-set 2015 film] Chi-Raq [laughs].
Really?
Well, you don’t live in Chicago. No, they did not like that film at all.
Wow. It makes sense that you would say that you’re not specifically doing anything for Black folks as a monolith. ‘Cause I think that idea in and of itself would be in opposition to what you’ve always represented. It’s always been a broader, wider—
We are so diverse and so many things. So, for me to say, I’m just doing one thing; there’s only one version of Black people, I mean, that’s just . . . I don’t think that’s intelligent.
Washington as David King in Highest 2 Lowest.
A24
Do you think that you’re more Jackie Robinson or Satchel Page?
You know, that’s a crazy question you asked me. I say that because my daughter’s name is Satchel. And my mother’s name is Jackie, Jacqueline, so . . . [laughs] . . . But I think there’s a lot to what you name your child. You know? And we Black folks, and I say this with much respect, we be making up names! [Laughs.]
Takisha, Shaquanda . . .
Oh, I swear to God! We be making up names! [Laughs.] I mean, that’s who we are. That’s who we are. We’re gonna do that . . . I mean, look . . . we’re creative!
There’s an epic scene in Highest 2 Lowest where a subway chase occurs at the same time as a Puerto Rican Day Parade party.
That’s my homage to the director Billy Friedkin and his film The French Connection starring Gene Hackman. That film?… Whoo! Saw that in high school! And it’s funny, the great sequence where he’s chasing the subway, the L train, where that chasing starts was the subway stop [by] my high school. So it was shot while I was in high school, but I was in class, so no one knew it was being shot while we were in class. And I hope people go back and check out The French Connection. Great, great movie. Please watch The French Connection again. Promise me that. All right?
I promise you, I’ll watch it. What’s your funniest or most interesting memory of A$AP Rocky’s interactions with Denzel on set?
For years, people, not just me, said that Rocky could be Denzel’s son. For years, people were saying that. And I asked Rocky about it. He said, “Yeah, it’s my” — his big ears. So to get the honor and the pleasure of having these two guys go after each other in the scene — generational. And here’s the thing though: Rocky is not masquerading as an actor. He is an actor. And he came with his game, because he knew he had to. He just couldn’t . . . this is Denzel here. So his thing was like, “I got testicles too!” [Laughs.] And that just heightened, to me, the drama between the two in the movie and where their characters are. A generational beef, in addition to all the other stuff that’s going on in the film.
Yeah, Rocky definitely bodied that role, just brought a lot of energy to it.
It was authentic, wasn’t it?
Authentic as hell.
I mean, Rocky’s from Harlem, uptown! [Laughs.]. And Denzel is such a presence that people start getting weak in the knees if they have to go directly against him. That’s how powerful Denzel is. And if you don’t bring it, you just gonna be overpowered. But Rocky’s like, “Fuck that.” [Laughs.] You know, sports: The best games are when they’re highly, highly contested. There’s no game when a team is blowing out the other team. There’s no drama there! Right or wrong?
You ‘re right. Just like this last season with the Knicks.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. You want one more question?
Fair enough.
So you enjoyed the film, though, right?
Absolutely.
What did you expect going into the film? Were you feeling New York when you saw that film?
Absolutely.
Cool. Well, opens Friday. [Laughs.]
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