ALTOONA – Filmmaker, producer, director, writer and actor Spike Lee will speak at Penn State Altoona Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013, at 7:30 p.m. in the Misciagna Family Center for Performing Arts.
Free tickets are available at the Penn State Altoona Bookstore, at the box office in the Misciagna Family Center or at the door on the evening of the program if not “sold out.”
You already know the Academy Award-nominated classic Do the Right Thing and the Cannes’ favorite Jungle Fever. You cheered at Malcolm X, screamed during Summer of Sam, and felt enraged and empathetic watching When the Levees Broke, his Peabody-winning HBO documentary on Hurricane Katrina. You know the Nike Air Jordan ads. You know he’s one of the most influential directors of his generation. But do you really know Spike Lee?
Though born in Atlanta, Lee grew up in Brooklyn, the future setting for many of his films. Studying at NYU’s Tisch School of the Art, Lee made a thesis film, Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, which became the first student film ever to be showcased in Lincoln Center’s New Directors New Films Festival. His first feature, She’s Gotta Have It, shot on just $175,000, grossed over seven million at the box office.
Lee has since produced and directed countless movies, or as they’re known in the vernacular, “Spike Lee Joints.” He’s also penned a dozen screenplays and appeared in everything from his own Clockers to Saturday Night Live. In person, the provocateur and media icon is never at a loss for words. As one of the most outspoken African-American voices, he talks candidly about issues of race in mainstream media and Hollywood, using a behind-the-scenes look at his celebrated body of work, whose images of racial division and understanding have ingrained themselves on the popular consciousness for decades now.