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When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts.

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When the Levees Broke

A Requiem in Four Acts

Produced by Jacqueline Glover, Spike Lee, Sheila Nevins, Samuel D. Pollard and Bruce Robinson; directed by Spike Lee; cinematography by Cliff Charles; edited by Geeta Gandbhir, Nancy Novack and Samuel D. Pollard; music by Terrence Blanchard; with Shelton Shakespeare Alexander, Harry Belafonte, Terrence Blanchard, Wilhelmina Blanchard, Kathleen Blanco, Douglas Brinkley, Michael Eric Dyson, Wynton Marsalis, Gina Montanna, Mark Morial, Arthur Morrell, Ray Nagin, Sean Penn, Rev. AI Sharpton, Col. Lewis Stetliff, Ivor van Heerden and Kanye West. Color, 255 mins. An HBO production.

It has been an interesting year for Spike Lee fans. The director has released two of the finest works of his career, representing a significant bounce-back from the muddle of ideas that was She Hate Me. At the same time, Lee's 2006 renaissance does, to some extent, come at the expense of many of the brasher, more confrontational aspects of his personality as a filmaker. The March 2006 theatrical release of Inside Man found Lee helming a deft, taut heist picture, an actorly face-off between Denzel Washington and Clive Owen with the great Jodie Foster thrown in almost as a bonus. The film displays several classic Leeisms: chronological shifting signified with washed-out film stock; a dig at NYPD racial insensitivity; and of course, the 'people-mover' shot. (Why should Washington run up to a building when he can float forward like a hovering angel?) There was no doubt who was behind the camera calling the shots, and yet Lee placed his style squarely in the service of Russell Gewirtz's screenplay and its old-school genre mechanics, bringing them to life with an ambiance that can only be described as playful....