You Gotta Start Somewhere: Spike Lee

Spike Lee, photographed for his 1995 film Clockers.

Every master storyteller, from Spielberg to Anderson, sharpened their voice with the very humble short format. Long before the accolades Spike Lee used a student short film to declare a war on Hollywood’s racist canon… and nearly got expelled for it.

Every iconic director has a point of origin. For Steven Spielberg, it was the Super 8 shorts from his youth we saw in The Fabelmans. For PT Anderson, it was the raw energy of Cigarettes & Coffee. But few emerging filmmakers have used the short film format to launch a career as politically and artistically charged as Spike Lee. Long before he became a two-time Academy Award-winning writer, director, producer and actor, Lee was a student at NYU, sharpening a cinematic voice rooted in culture, race and urban identity.

Before being known for his unflinching social commentaries like She’s Gotta Have It (1986) to the explosive racial tensions of Do the Right Thing (1989), Lee has always used cinema as a microscope. Do the Right Thing remains arguably his greatest work, chronicling a Brooklyn neighbourhood on the hottest day of the year as simmering resentments boil into violence. The film cements itself as a provocateur unafraid to challenge audiences, a reputation he has carried through decades of criticism.

But to truly understand Spike, we have to look further back to a 23-year-old grad student who turned a simple assignment into a short film maelstrom.

While attending NYU, Lee was challenged to make a short film. The result was The Answer, a divisive and impossible-to-find work that telegraphs his entire career in under thirty minutes. The plot is strikingly simple: “A Black Screenwriter is hired to make the $50 million remake of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.”

In the few interviews and surviving clips available online, we witness a powerful visual metaphor. A young Black man receives the job offer from a figure cloaked in white robes and a white hood, the unmistakable regalia of the Ku Klux Klan. The image isn’t subtle, nor is it intended to be; it’s a direct confrontation with the Hollywood Establishment.

To appreciate Lee’s audacity, we have to understand the target of his critique. Released in 1915, The Birth of a Nation remains one of the most technically accomplished yet morally reprehensible films in the history of cinema. It follows two families during the American Civil War and Reconstruction, depicting the Klan as heroic saviors of the South while relying on grotesque, dehumanizing stereotypes of African Americans. Despite its vile propaganda, the film served as a modern recruiting tool for the KKK. It was (and oftentimes, just like in my school, still is) praised in film schools for its “cinematic innovation.” Moments like these make you wonder if films so fueled by hate deserve any kind of love (short answer: no).

Now put yourself in Lee’s position. As a young Black film student, he was expected to sit in classrooms and listen to institutions praise Griffith’s technical mastery while ignoring the film’s glaring racism and contextual message: quality over ideology.

Spike could have written a paper. He could’ve protested. Instead, he made The Answer. The resulting film was so divisive that the university nearly expelled him. That intensity, that refusal to separate art from ethics is the Spike Lee we know and love today. It is the same voice that dedicated years of his career to making his masterful 3 ½ hour Malcolm X biopic. The same voice who wrote the excellent satirical dark comedy BlacKkKlansman, putting a spotlight on the absurdity of racism and the KKK as a whole without undercutting the impact of their horrific actions. And finally, that same voice would later close Do the Right Thing with quotes from MLK Jr. and Malcolm X, refusing to offer a comfortable resolution (unlike Anderson in One Battle After Another).

Nowadays, it’s easy to look at Spike and see only the accolades. But for the emerging screenwriter, the critical takeaway is the medium itself. The short film is so often overlooked in favour of features. Yet, as Lee proved, it’s the perfect mini-laboratory for cinematic declarations of Black art like Ryan Coogler’s Sinners.

You gotta start somewhere. Spike Lee started with a short that proposed the Afro-surrealist context without flinching. By examining The Answer, we see the blueprint for the filmography that followed. It’s a reminder that the best short screenplays are not just stories; but arguments, provocations and manifestos we encounter everyday in our lives.

Spike himself put it best, “I’ve been very fortunate. Some people might call me a hardhead, but I’m not going to let other people dictate to me who I should be or the stories I should tell. That doesn’t register with me”. Ultimately, you should tell the stories your heart wants to tell, call out the injustice you see all around you and lift up those who need that extra hand.

When you sit down to write your next short, ask yourself: What is the one thing you need to say that you cannot say anywhere else? If you are true and fierce, like that 23-year-old NYU student who simply wouldn’t back down, just do the right thing, that might be your answer.