Crooklyn (Review)
A Writer-Director’s Review of Spike Lee’s Love Letter to Family and 1970s New York
“Why is my mom always riding me?”, is a question that the film Crooklyn and its director, Spike Lee, asks (and then answers) with this loving dive into life in the 1970s as a child. A semi-autobiographical film released in 1994, Crooklyn, shows us the soul-crushing responsibilities of womanhood/motherhood and family, but also shows the strength to be derived from love and support for one another. It brings attention to the idea that this love and support often does come from our family. Most specifically and most often though, from our mothers, who are held responsible for maintaining personal values and skills within families through generations.
STORY
We follow the Carmichael family: (Brothers) Clinton, Wendell, Nate, Joseph, (the lone daughter) Troy, (parents) Carolyn and Woody. The film begins with us getting integrated with the family’s reality and dynamics. Troy often gets excluded as the only girl, often getting no say in what goes on TV, being called a “flat-chested wench”. Whereas the boys bicker over things like who’s hogging all the candy, who called who names, in a way that can’t help but feel like pure memory (movie comfort food, even) to many watching.
The parents have genuine tension at the start of the film though, clashing after the children have gone to bed about the mounting bills. Woody is dedicated to his music and is sure that he will be able to rustle up some cash, however Carolyn, stressed out about her many responsibilities around the house and unable to trust his sometimes faulty judgment, can’t help but speak up for herself. She has exhausted herself by taking care of cooking, cleaning and discipline, while working full-time as a schoolteacher. Their argument flows upstairs as Carolyn goes to check that the children are asleep. They have an ugly, but very real moment of physicality in front of their children which leads to them falling down the stairs and Carolyn hurting her ankle. The family splits up for a while, with the children all essentially blaming their disciplinarian mother for driving their fun, permissive father away. All of them except Troy, who cooks breakfast for her mother the next morning and acts as a pillar of strength for her mother who can barely fight back tears, let alone stand.
The parents reconcile after Woody sends a rose along with a letter of apology. He returns to much fan-fare from the kids, as well as with a new music gig. The family sends Troy off to be with her rich, Southern cousin for her birthday. She has a nice time despite quickly growing tired of the perceived difference in social class, as well as colourism presented by her Aunt Song.
Troy comes back home, only to find her mother ailing. No one will tell the children what is wrong, but doctors inform Woody that she does not have very long. Carolyn tells Troy, essentially on her deathbed, that it will be her responsibility to take care of everyone going forward. Troy reacts to this with great sadness and distaste for the newfound responsibility, but pens it in. When preparing to attend her mother’s funeral, her Aunt brings her a dress to wear, which Troy initially declines to, citing that her mother hated polyester (a not so subtle metaphor for the role of mother in a patriarchal world). She relents however, when her father comes in and asks her to put it on, as it is what her mother would have wanted.
We jump forward a bit and we see the lasting effect of Carolyn on Troy, who still imagines her mother checking in on her and her progress as a woman, as she fixes her little brother’s hair before he goes out to play. She puts the stove on, then looks out into the street where the other children play. She smiles gently.
CRITIQUE
Crooklyn is a film that feels semi-autobiographical not just in the sense of being Spike Lee’s life stories, but in the sense that the narrative feels so relatable and compelling, while playing with characters and constructions that would all be semi-autobiographical to most with families watching. However, it is also auto-biographical in the way that (like in life) it doesn’t really start to make as much sense until you start getting closer to the end. It can, like life, feel fun but ultimately directionless and lacking structure until something happens that lines it all together.
This event is Carolyn’s death, which brings everything into focus thematically in a way that felt much more sub-textual earlier in the film. In some ways, the movie (like childhood) is content to enjoy ideas in simple ways until it comes time for Troy to grow up and gain responsibility. From there, clearly the thematic fabric of family, love and responsibility, all these themes tie together less loosely.
One thing, however, does get swept under the rug. Despite the acknowledgement of the role of women as heralds of the house and home, as well as the fact they often act as Kevlar as for irresponsible fathers against the social flak that comes with laying down discipline: they don’t follow up on this. Woody seems truly ready to gain responsibility after some character change, he’s ready to step up for his family in ways we don’t usually get to see a black man do in film from an optimistic point of view, however the film shows him (an adult) essentially acting with the same level of responsibility at the end as he was at the beginning.
Though one could argue this further paints the truism that the movie is conveying, that women often are the engine of families, not just out of patriarchal obligation, but out of love for their families. But I would argue painting the end as happy, though it works for the flow of emotions and overall tone of the movie, is a move that undoes some of the good work that the film does thematically in expressing the pain of patriarchal responsibility. Its whole sequence of ideas thematically is near perfect in this context, until it just barely (emphasis on *barely*) fails to stick the landing for me.
ACTING
Each actor breathes life into their role with such comfort and personality, Lee’s directorial prowess as a director of actors should be noted first and foremost in this film. Aided by a very naturalistic and realistic script with a great sense of rhythm, Alfre Woodard and Delroy Lindo (Carolyn and Woody, respectively) turn in a performance loaded with chemistry and an engaging romantic dynamic. They ride every peak and valley of the script with aplomb, and a certain rooted nature to their performance which allows their characters to feel unique and colourful without compromising their emotional reality.
These powerful performances also allow certain gaps (or a feeling of jumpiness structurally) in the movie, whether informationally or otherwise, to just slide past and not act as immersion breaking. This is something I feel is a must for the story of this film, for which a large part of its carefully crafted storytelling structure is its impeccable emotional pacing pinned down by the actors.
The quality doesn’t skip a beat when relying on the child actors either. Zelda Harris (Troy), most specifically, is amazing from start to finish: acting with an uncanny naturalism and reactivity uncommon in film performers of her age. One must tip their hat to Lee, who managed to nurture these young actors and together they craft a great performance throughout the entirety of the film: a hard task to be done when working with children is such an integral part of your filmmaking process.
AESTHETICS + CINEMATOGRAPHY
Spike Lee returns to his playbook from Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever from a visual standpoint, preferring to make the camera linger and let New York do its colourful thing. There is a wonderful colour to the Brooklyn environment, which is helped by often beautiful lighting (though definitely not to the standard of Do the Right Thing) to really give that feel as if you are watching a beautiful memory in real time. This effect works for those looking to have their nostalgia stoked by this film, and those that are looking to be sucked into a memory of a different time. In conjunction with the writing, Spike Lee uses the camera to give Brooklyn a great sense of personality, often placing us looking through windows at the neighborhood or wider angles where we can survey the vast visual details. Brooklyn in the 70s is very colourful and this fits in even more with the overall design ethos, which links colours with childhood: the way that the inside of the house is just as much house as it is 3rd grade classroom (yellow walls, kids’ paintings up). This is all designed to carry that wholesome, nostalgic feel for the audience in a way that most would feel works. It gives a certain personality to this period piece that a lot do not, considering that they put all of their resources into creating either a facsimile of the year at the time, or a greatest hits of a certain decade: whereas this feels like a very specific memory and feeling of a time from a real person’s perspective, which I think gives it all the more power. This is Spike Lee’s Brooklyn and his childhood. Or at least how he remembers it, warts and all. It’s beautiful.