“I Have Today’s Forecast For You: HOT!”
How heat affected “Do the Right Thing” in a huge way.
Alfred Hitchcock knew that the intense heat of a day effects more than just the number on a thermometer. In his short “Shopping for Death,” released in 1956 as an episode of his series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Hitchcock explores this theme of heat and uses it to explain the brash actions of a woman in distress. Similarly, Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing uses Hitchcock’s “Shopping for Death” as inspiration for the hot weather in Brooklyn.
“I remember as a kid watching an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents about this [man] who was doing this study that after a certain temperature, the murder rate goes up. People get agitated. It just becomes crazy and combustible . . .”
— Spike Lee
Lee uses it to not just set up conflict, but also to build up relationships. The incessant heat of a summer Brooklyn enveloped the cast and noticeably changed each character. It doesn’t just add the glint of sweat to Mookie’s forehead as he delivers a pizza, but has a larger impact on each character, and the whole movie as whole.
One of the first things Mr. Senor Love Daddy, the radio host, says when the movie starts is: “I have today’s forecast for you, HOT!” Spike Lee introduced the heat early on in the movie so it was obvious to the viewer. In the next scene, The camera moves to Da Mayor’s apartment, which has an orange light coming through the window and the old man is covered in sweat. The heat is inescapable, even within the confines of his apartment. Its the first thing all of the characters have to deal with when they wake up, so it has an impact on the rest of their day. While this might seem like a small detail, it sets up how Lee uses it throughout the entire rest of the film. The same can be said in “Shopping for Death,” the characters are complaining about the heat and they are drenched in sweat. The women is almost in pain because of it.
While this might seem like a small detail, it sets up how Lee uses it throughout the entire rest of the film. The tensions rise just as the heat does. You can tell how it slowly starts to affect everyone in the film, and the moods get worse as a result. Almost every single time something escalates, Spike Lee made sure to include the heat. The first example of this in Do the Right Thing was when Pino, Vito, and Sal arrive at the pizzeria. Immediately, Pino complains about the heat, and asks if the restaurant is going to have AC. Sal replied no, and Pino is clearly frustrated. This escalates when Sal asks Pino to sweep, and Pino tells Vito to do it. They go back-and-forth, and both brothers start yelling. Pino even says “I detest this place.” While this is also setting up the feud between both brothers, it also has to do with the tension created by the weather and the boiling point it represents.
In Hitchcock’s Shopping for Death, this theme is explored through sociology. Shopping for Death follows two insurance salesman who approach a women saying she is “accident prone,” and the heat of the summer would lead to her death. This is where Lee got the idea that the high heat could increase violent tendencies. The Woman is eventually killed by her drunk husband after the salesman leave, a direct consequence of the weather. The episode is very similar to much of Do the Right Thing, everyone is covered in sweat, irritated, and clearly uncomfortable. The final scene is not much different from the scene of Sal’s restaurant burning down in Do the Right Thing. The crowd of people, the confused onlookers, and the absolute chaos that ensues. The violence that takes place throughout the movie, from Sal destroying Radio Raheem’s speaker to the burning down of Sal’s pizzeria can be traced back to Hitchcock's hypothesis.
The whole of “Do the Right Thing,” is like a ticking time bomb. This weather creates a tension that is only possible because of the the intense heat explored in the film. Tension that Hitchcock explores in his short episode, Shopping for Death. As the movie goes on, it gets closer and closer to exploding, and by the end it goes off in a violent explosion of hatred and built up emotion.
One of the most important scenes of the entire movie is when the two white cops drive by the three black men sitting on the sidewalk. You can see the glaring light of the sun and the sweat reflecting on each man’s head. The tension between the two groups is high. A dark, somber piano starts playing as they stare at each other. While nothing more happens in this scene, this shows the stress between the groups and intensity of the heat. The scene is also placed close to the middle of the movie. This was clearly no accident, as this is the point where the intensity starts to rise and it becomes clear to the viewers.
The racial tension culminates towards the end of the movie, when Radio Raheem is killed and Sal’s restaurant is burned down. The restaurant goes down in a blaze, the perfect representation of how the heat changed the movie as a whole. This scene is absolute chaos, and it is all started after the death of Radio Raheem at the hands of the white cops and when Mookie throws a trashcan at the restaurant. It also takes place at night, almost like the heat of the day was built up into that very moment. What was foreshadowed in Shopping for Death played out, the violence eventually broke out. Spike Lee knew what kind of influence strong heat can have on a situation, and played it out perfectly.
Spike Lee used something as small as the suffocating of summer Brooklyn to impact the entire movie. While most directors might not use something like the weather for a greater purpose, Lee knew that it would create an entirely new setting and mood of the movie overall. It wouldn’t have been the same in the cold of winter and he knew that. He created exactly what he wanted with Do the Right Thing, blending the complexities of a divided community in Brooklyn with the intense heat of the summer.
