MUBI

A true independent film, shot for whatever money young Spike Lee could accumulate from friends, family, and art grants, and he makes the most of it with the held of chief DP Ernest Dickerson, whose black and white images of New York, or mostly, Brooklyn, rival Gordon Willis’ “Manhattan” and James Wong Howe’s “The Sweet Smell of Success” in presenting the city in a gritty, loving beauty. Lee plays one of three lovers of title character Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns), who is at the mercy of a pseudo-documentary format that interviews her suitors post-relationship, doubling back in flash back to see how it played out, examining, among other things, the psychology of sexual relationships, monogamy, the female sex drive, and the macho ego, though frankly, the girl isn’t as terrific as the men would make her out to be, which in itself is one of the lessons the film has about obsession and perception. Of the players, Lee makes out the best as the hilarious Mars, a frantic street clown that Lee would parlay into a pop culture icon (especially opposite Michael Jordan in Nike commercials) in the wake of the film’s surprise success, but critically, Johns isn’t up to the task of such an important female lead, and we wonder why these guys don’t ditch her sooner. This may be slight next to the more polished films Lee would make in the following years, but everyone has to start somewhere, and this is a funny and inventive debut.