Highly acclaimed film director Spike Lee in collaboration with novelist Richard Price has created and directed the overwhelming film ‘ Clockers’ in an incriminating, violent area of the Brooklyn projects. Whilst filming he uncovered the crack problem on the neighbourhood.
The film is about two brothers, Strike (Ronald Dunham) a clocker (a clocker is someone who sells drugs around the clock, 24 seven.) Victor Dunham an upright, sincere man who doesn’t like to live his life with trouble, he only has his mind set taking is family out of the violent streets of Brooklyn Projects, which at first seemed as though it was a peaceful area. Alongside the visual images and film techniques Spike Lee used creative symbols to influence his audience to see the detrimental effects of drugs and guns. He used the billboard/ slogan: ‘ No more packing ‘ which was a suitcase with a missing gun. He used Gun’s through out his Film to show that everyone is influenced by guns even the less minded. They used the virtual reality computer game- ‘ Gangsta’ used by the young mind of Tyrone the men�tee of Strike.
The prolific symbol of the gun was presented to the audience through various items such as clothes and jewellery etc. These were shown mainly by a clocker, Scientific. It was also shown through billboards and other people. The protagonist Strike used his gun for back-up. This Weapon of destruction was eventually used to kill a former clocker and the partner of Rodney Little (Strike’s Mentor) Errol. In my opinion, the gun was shown to announce the consequences of a gun which is if you think it’s a game, it’s not, and you are truly ending someone’s life.
The symbol on the billboard saying ‘ No more packing’ was a great use but yet it sometimes was very hard to see when the billboard was shown. This phrase meant that you don’t need a gun wherever you go. This personally was what I felt. It had showed up whenever someone died, and also came at the end in Strikes train set. The Virtual Reality game ‘ Gangsta’ played by 12 year old Tyrone helped to show that the media’s computer game influences people. Spike Lee used animated character of the film to show what media can do to people which is to act upon peoples mind and hack in to it.
The game shows a young boy on a bike with a gun in his hand going around shooting people. Tyrone’s mind was on the virtual time and not on the real world. He went immediately back to playing after strike took the game off his head as though he was hooked on killing people in virtual reality. The film a flashback of the game as the end is exactly the same in the conclusion of the game. Spike Lee used the train as a great choice because he wanted to show that once you deal your world goes round and round and never stops. At the end of the film Spike used the train to show that strike wanted to start a fresh life out of the projects but still it would not stop, the life a clocker, once a clocker always a clocker.
As strike has never used a train in his life apart from his train set and for the first he uses one. The cinematic twist in the film was ingenious as Spike made us think it was Strike in the start when he was walking around outside the shop where the victim Darryl Adams worked, with what was supposedly a gun as he was in a hurry with a newspaper in his hand with something under it. The unlikely killer was Victor, Strikes brother who we would have never suspected as when he was questioned there was a bright light behind him as though he was an Angel. Overall Lee was very successful in his film directing because he wanted to create a movie which was what would happen the moment you deal with drugs and guns.
He exposed his ingenuities and also created a movie of what the life of a clocker was like and also how it would end up.
