She's Gotta Have It (1986)

She's Gotta Have It (1986)

In writer/director Spike Lee's R-rated, Rashomon-like comedy/drama, a low-budget independent film - it was his first feature-length film - a black and white feminist comedy marked by abundant female sexuality and nudity. Surprisingly, it was a major hit (grossing over 7ドル million on a budget of just 175,000ドル).

The 84 minute film portrayed a black woman who was sexually-liberated, self-assured and free-thinking, who couldn't commit or settle down with a single man. The breakout film, taglined as "a seriously sexy comedy," was revolutionary when it first screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Years later, director Spike Lee created a updated TV series based upon the film, that ultimately ran for two seasons on Netflix (with 19 episodes from late November 2017 to the end of May 2019).

• the film's prologue opened with a title card and a provocative quote from a 1937 novel, with white on black lettering - with a piano soundtrack - from Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God:
  • "Ships at a distance have every man's wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don't want to remember and remember everything they don't want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly."
• the film opened with the film's main protagonist Nola Darling (Tracy Camilla Johns in her debut film), directly addressing the camera about her search for her one true love - she concluded that ultimately she discovered that she wasn't looking for declarations of love, or crude pickup braggadocio about manhood size, but a man who could express his feelings:
  • "I want you to know the only reason I'm consenting to this is because I wish to clear my name. Not that I care what people think, but enough is enough. And if in the end, it helps some other people out, well, then, that's fine, too. I consider myself normal, whatever that means. Some people call me a freak. I hate that word. I don't believe in it. Better yet, I don't believe in labels. But what are you gonna do? This was the deal."
• Nola was a successful, good-looking, independent-minded African-American - a gentrified Brooklyn graphic artist: ("a layout/paste-up artist. I do mechanics for magazines"); she was an only child with a musician father, Sonny Darling (Bill Lee, Spike Lee's father)
• in the midst of the film, she was engaged in a complex love triangle with three men; she was juggling three sex partners or suitors in separate open relationships - all of the men were very competitive and combative with each other:
  • Jamie Overstreet (Tommy Redmond Hicks), young and handsome, an alpha-male, stable and overprotective
  • "Mars" Blackmon (Spike Lee), a talkative bicycle messenger with an arrow design pointed downward that was hair-sculpted on the back of his head; he was the most immature, carefree and comical of Nola's three lovers
  • Greer Childs (John Canada Terrell), a wealthy, self-obsessed and vain model, narcissistic, with a cover photo for the magazine Gentleman's Quarterly
• Jamie Overstreet - who was most prominent in her love-search, also interjected with a monologue:
  • "I believe that there is only one person, one person in this world, who is meant to be your soul mate, your lifelong companion. The irony is rarely do these two people hook up. They just wander about aimlessly. But if you're lucky, and you do find that person, you can't blow it. Nola was that person"
• after Jamie's monologue at the film's start, the film's most memorable sexual encounter was sex by candlelight between Nola and Jamie (also seen later in the film)

• due to Nola's many male friends who often stayed on weekends, Nola's roommate Clorinda Bradford (Joie Lee) had moved out (after two years) following a "big falling out" - as she explained in the film's third statement toward the camera:
  • "I couldn't keep track. I'd get up in the morning and I'd run into all these strange men in my bathroom."
• another statement was made by "Mars" Blackmon, Nola's 2nd boyfriend - a goofy bike messenger, who commented on Nola's sex appeal: "Nola had the goods and she knew what to do. Look, all men want freaks. We just don't want 'em for a wife"; during his first visit to her apartment, Mars suggested that they could be roommates
• while involved with her three male lovers, Nola also maintained a relationship with Opal Gilstrap (Raye Dowell), a lesbian, who described how she would like to modify Nola's sexual preference:
  • "Nola may have been straight as an arrow. I just want her to be open-minded. Check it out. Then decide. That's all"
• during a conversation, Opal inferred that Nola needed to find out what it was like to make love to a woman, and she would learn what it wasn't: "It's not some musty man pounding away inside of you a mile a minute"; Jaime was particularly threatened by the thought that Nola might consider bi-sexuality: ("What's up with you and Opal?")
• Nola's 'third' boyfriend was Greer Childs, whose first on-screen words were indicative of his extreme narcissistic personality:
  • "I was the best thing that ever happened to Nola Darling. Ask her, she'll tell you that herself. Why, she worshipped me....It was I who made her a better person. I molded her"
• Nola was aware of his deep vanity and once told him: "I've never seen anybody who liked to look at themselves more than you do. Don't you ever get tired?"; he was very shallow-minded about her appearance:
  • "You know, if you weren't fine, I wouldn't even bother with you....I'm everything that you need"
• after exercising together in her apartment, Nola decided to invite Greer to have sex with her; she quickly undressed on her bed and then watched patiently as neat-freak Greer carefully and obsessively folded each item of removed clothing before finally getting into bed with her, for an athletic bout of sex
• when Nola's father Sonny (Bill Lee) was introduced, Nola admitted she wished she wasn't an only child:
  • "I do wish I had a brother or a sister. Sometimes I got lonely being the only child. Nola Darling is having herself a big family when the time comes. Five rusty-butt boys!"
• Nola's birthday (May 19th) celebration and a park picnic was part of Jamie's surprise for her; the colorful musical sequence was prefaced with Nola's clicking of her heels three times and the statement: "There's no place like home." The day featured two lovers-dancers, and was followed with sex by candlelight (already seen in an earlier scene)

• there were two immense close-ups of Mars kissing Nola's breast, and then tickling her belly-button with his tongue; after having sex with her, Mars became insecure and asked Nola: "Am I as good as Jamie or Greer?"; and then he added: "Nola, I think I love you"; she disagreed: "We are not in love. We're in like....If anything you're in love with my love-making. So don't mess it up"; joking with her, he put her panties on his head, and then jealously asked: "Do Jamie or Greer make you laugh like this? Huh?"
• Nola refused to commit fully to Jamie, and he became exasperated with her: "To Nola, we were all interchangeable, simply parts of a whole. And it didn't matter who, just as long as it was a warm body. Nola had no devotion, allegiance, or loyalty whatsoever"; he hated sharing her as a sex partner: "Nola hurt me to the core, but she's gotta have it";
• then, Greer accused Nola of being a sex addict: ("I think you're sick. Now, I'm not saying that you're a nympho, a slut, or a whore, but maybe a sex addict...A nice lady doesn't go humping from bed to bed"), but of course, he thought she should only devote herself sexually to him
• as a result, Nola spoke with sex therapist Dr. Jamison (Epatha Merkinson) who concluded that she had "a healthy sex drive" and was not an addict
• Nola was simultaneously handling three disparate male lovers, who each wanted her commitment demanded by an ultimatum, despite her resistance to belonging to one man; to try to bring the three men together, Nola invited all of her suitors to a Thanksgiving get-together:
  • "I invited all of you fools. You were gonna meet sooner or later, so why let it be an accident?"
• during the meal, the males awkwardly interacted, insulted, and argued with each other; fed up with all of them behaving like children, Nola went to bed but ended up in Jamie's arms on her bed in the living room while the other two left
• in a "bad dream" nightmare, Nola dreamt that all three of her beaus' girlfriends arrived to call her a "homewrecker" and then set her bed on fire - and then she awoke
• all three men began to pressure and demand for Nola to make a final decision or choice between them:
  • Jamie confessed that for two weeks, he had been dating the dancer in the park named Ava (Cheryl Burr) - and wanted Nola to decide about her commitment to him
  • simultaneously, Greer invited Nola to a two-week, all-expenses paid trip to the Caribbean in the next week, but she refused: "I don't know if I could stand being alone with you for two weeks"
  • "Mars" began to feel that Nola was undependable, and complained to Jamie: "Nola's about dependable as a ripped diaphragm...Man, making a date with her, it's 50-50 she shows at all...The sister was bogus. Twenty-four seven, 365. Bogus."
• Nola appeared to want to break up with Jamie for good when he became impatient with her about a delay in making up her mind: "Sweetheart, what are you searching for? Do you honestly ever think you're gonna find it?"
• Opal arrived and offered to comfort Nola: ("I can make you feel good"), but Nola also rejected her: "Opal, it's time for you to leave"
• that evening, after Opal left, Nola pleasured herself as she lay in bed alone

• afterwards, she called Jamie in the middle of the night (he was in bed with Ava), and claimed he had to come over, because it was a "very important" emergency; when he arrived, he was angry that he had been misled into having sex with her, when all she wanted was sex: "I need you....Make love to me"; she experienced a forcible rape (from behind) when he was consumed in anger by her indecisiveness; during the rape, her other male sex partners briefly appeared in Jamie's place:
  • Jamie: "You don't want me to make love to you. You want me to f--k you! Is this the way you like it? Huh? Is this the way you like it? Does Greer do it like this? What about Mars? Who else? Who else?"
    Nola: "You're hurting me!"
    Jamie (demanding): "Whose pussy is this? Whose is it?"
    Nola: "It's yours!"
• Jamie left her following rough sex by pushing her face down into her bed, and as he left, looked back with pleasure at having degraded her:
  • "Here I am trying to dog you the best I can. And what bothers me is I enjoyed it"
• Greer came to the conclusion that Nola was dissatisfied with all three men, because they were not complete enough for her:
  • "I can now see that Nola saw Mars, Jamie and myself as a whole. Not as three separate individuals but as one organism. We let her create a three-headed, six-armed, six-legged, three-penised monster. And it was all our fault."
• there were three back-to-back breakups that followed:
  • Greer - he basically acted in an insulting and demeaning way during their parting: "There are plenty of fine, super-fine women in Manhattan. You never did have enough drive or ambition for me. You don't wanna be somebody! I am, so forget you! Keep your tight ass here in Brooklyn! I'm gonna get me a white girl. You could have had it all! Forget you!"
  • Mars - Nola was very direct to him: "It's not gonna work, Mars...You and me...Me and you is not gonna work, either...I don't love you....It's time for you to grow up"
  • Jamie - Nola told Jamie that she had finally come to a decision - that she had chosen him, but that she needed to be "celibate" with him; he was bitter and disagreed with her: "There's no middle ground with you. No stability!"; he added: "I'm moving forward, Nola"
• Nola returned to Jamie for a brief time, but then in retrospect admitted: "That celibacy thing didn't last too long. Who was I fooling?"; in the long run, she ultimately came to the realization that she should have never given Jamie a second chance - and it was a "momentary weakness"; he was too controlling, traditionally patriarchal and only wanted a 'standard-issue' wife:
  • "He wanted a wife, that mythic old-fashioned girl next door"
• she was determined to not settle down with any one man - for the time being:
  • "It's about control, my body, my mind. Who was going to own it? Them? Or me? I am not a one-man woman."
• the film ended with her in bed and asleep, surrounded by many candles