THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, March 23, 1996 TAG: 9603220071
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
FOR THE MOMENT, controversial filmmaker Spike Lee appears to have given up the 'hood for sex.
His latest film, ``Girl 6,'' deals explicitly with telephone sex. Theresa Randle plays an aspiring actress who takes a job as anonymous girl No. 6 in a phone sex office. She sees it as one of her greatest acting challenges. Eventually, she becomes seduced by the fantasy aspects of her job, and appears to be selling out.
Some critics have wondered if the film might not be a sellout for Lee. ``Clockers,'' his last film, dealt with drugs on the street. It got mixed reviews and modest box office. In the movie business, on the other hand, isn't all sex safe - fiscally speaking?
Whatever Lee's film setting, only Oliver Stone appears capable of challenging him as the nation's most controversial film director.
Lee has proven provocative both on and off the screen.
``People have said my films are anti-white and anti-semitic, but a lot of the people who have said that have never seen any of my films,'' said Lee, staring sleepy-eyed from beneath the brim of his baseball cap.
``Girl 6'' has been widely perceived as a throwback to Lee's first success, ``She's Gotta Have It,'' a critically acclaimed film about a promiscuous woman named Nola Darling who enjoyed the sexual attentions of three men and one woman.
The hip treatment put Spike Lee on the film-making map. Notably, the monologue that actress Randle uses for her phone sex audition is the same one Nola Darling spoke in the 1986 film.
``The two films are very different,'' Lee stressed. ``Nola was promiscuous and no one criticized her, particularly, for it. It was before AIDS. Nola was an independent woman who knew herself and was sure of herself. Girl 6, on the other hand, is trying to find herself.''
The script was written by Suzan-Lori Parks, a playwriting professor at Yale University School of Drama, who said she worked as a telephone sex talker in the 1980s.
``Spike initially suggested that we write it together, but he got busy with other projects,'' she said. ``I wanted to write it independently, and I did.''
Lee said he didn't know Parks worked in the phone sex industry.
``As far as I know, she wrote the script from research. But let her tell it her way,'' he said.
Leading lady Randle researched her role by doing some nasty talking on the phone herself.
``It's a business, just like any other business,'' she said. ``But some people don't realize it's a multi-billion dollar business today. It requires an actress. I don't criticize the men who call. In a way, I think it's healthy.''
She doesn't think Lee has sold out by returning to such a sexually explicit subject.
``This is a story about a woman in search of finding herself,'' Randle said.
``Hey, but we do have a slamming soundtrack, man,'' she said. The artist formerly known as Prince wrote three new songs for the film.
``Spike got a lot of his friends to participate,'' she said. ``One day I arrived and all these flowers were everywhere. I thought that was great, but then I found out that they were for Madonna. She was working that day.''
Making cameo appearances in the film were John Turturro, Halle Berry, Quentin Tarentino and supermodel Naomi Campbell.
Jennifer Lewis, who played Tina Turner's mother in ``What's Love Got to Do With It,'' plays Lil, the boss of the phone sex office. She described Lee's set as loose.
``We were in trouble if there was a Knicks game that day,'' she quipped.
Lewis laughed and shook her head. ``Spike is not an actor's director. He just lets you go. Personally, I like that. The little monkey has mellowed, I think, since he got a wife and a child.''
Even still, Lee expressed bitterness toward the film industry.
``How did John Travolta get a best actor nomination when Samuel L. Jackson just got a supporting actor nomination for `Pulp Fiction'?'' he asked. ``That one isn't hard to figure out.''
He said black filmmakers are ``limited by both the amount of money they can get to make a film and by the kind of stories they can tell. If `Waiting to Exhale' had been budgeted $4 million more than it was, it would never have been made. There is a ceiling above which they won't go in order to budget a black film.''
To fund his film-making habit, Lee developed other enterprises.
He founded 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks and Musicworks and has created two retail companies, Spike's Joint and Spike's Joint West in Los Angeles.
He just returned from Brazil where he filmed Michael Jackson's new video ``They Don't Care About Us'' amid controversy. First, the government opposed filming the ghetto, and then headlines claimed the video was made with help from the Mafia.
Lee dismissed the stories, claiming the controversy was concocted by ``a bunch of politicians who were trying to get their names in Brazilian papers.''
Lee, who turned 39 on Wednesday, said he may return to the 'hood in future films.
``The 'hood is just a hook for a story. There are other stories to be told there. In an area in which the majority of young men are being killed, or killing themselves, by age 23, there is room for a lot more drama.''
At the moment, he is stymied in his efforts to make a big-budget film about baseball legend Jackie Robinson.
``This would be an epic movie,'' he said. ``The 50th anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier in baseball comes up in 1997. It is one of the most important events in the history of this country.''
He wants the film to be major, on the scale of his ``Malcolm X.''
``Malcolm X was misunderstood as a historical figure. Only now do people understand his place in history. Jackie Robinson is very different. He's an American hero. It would be an upbeat movie, but I've been turned down everywhere. I went to Ted Turner. He doesn't want to make it. I took it to every studio.''
Still, he said with conviction, ``it will get made, even if I have to kill someone. Yes, it will get made.''
There can be little doubt. ILLUSTRATION: DAVID LEE
Fox Searchlight
Madonna, SPike Lee and Theresa Randle in "Girl 6."
by CNB