She's Gotta Have It

She's Gotta Have It (1986) was Spike Lee's first feature-length film. A groundbreaking film for African-American filmmakers, it marked a shift in the presentation of Black people in American cinema, away from the Blaxploitation era of the 1970s.

The film was shot in fifteen days on a budget of $175,000 and grossed $7,137,502at the U.S. box office. Spike Lee details his trials and consolations on the making and distribution of the film, in the informative and entertaining book, Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking.

The highly-stylized, black-and-white film features a lush jazz score by Spike Lee's father, Bill Lee.

Plot

Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns) is a young, attractive, sexually independent, self-assured Brooklynite who juggles three suitors: the polite and well-meaning Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks); the self-obsessed male model Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell); and the comical bicycle messenger Mars Blackmon (director Spike Lee). Nola is attracted to the best in each of them, but refuses to commit to any of them, cherishing her personal freedom instead, even though each man wants her for himself.

Awards

• Prix de la Jeunesse at the Cannes Film Festival, 1986.
• New Generation Award at the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards, 1986.
• Best First Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, 1987

External links

• She's Gotta Have It at the Internet Movie Database
• Lee, Spike (1987). Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0671644173.