Do The Right Thing (EOTWS)
End Of The Week Shorts #47 extract: Do The Right Thing (1989)
Just finished reading the screenplay, not watching the film, and Do The Right Thing certainly holds some punch. Granted, however, it works on screen better than it does the page.
The style of writing in the script is more opinionated and so it guides you through some of the subtextual references in a manner that is too point blank. Moreover, the style lends itself to, at brief moments, silliness as it caricaturises the world built up. That said, the script - thanks to the style - moves along brilliant, really making you feel the day-in-a-life structure of the story. Some sequences don't translate well on the page (the iconic racial slur scene for example), but the social debate of the story is more pronounced in text. There are downsides to this, however. In the script, it seems that the driving force of the final catastrophe is a fear of the future and confusion (a highlighted preceding moment is Mookie confronted by his future working in the pizzeria, demoralised - this is possibly what has him start the riot, less so the murder). This flattens the film's complexity and, to be honest, I was left rather uninterested in all the story's questions because of this. Nonetheless, pretty good stuff.
