Spike Lee's Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking

The focus here is Spike Lee, writer, director and star of the 1986 independent film She's Gotta Have It, which cost $175,000 to make, grossed $8 million and won the Prix de Jeunesse at Cannes. In an extended interview with George, Lee discusses his childhood, parents, film school, friends, influences, early films and She's Gotta Have It, about which he says, ""We wanted to show some kind of black sensuality that I know people want to see, but for whatever reason don'tbecause white people don't know how to handle it.'' The centerpiece of the book is a journal Lee kept from 1984 to 1986. It traces the film from his earliest ideas (``Men . . . are encouraged to have and enjoy sex, while it's not so for women. Why this double standard?''), scriptwriting and revising, money-raising efforts, production crises, personal notes (``lost weight, down to 115 pounds''), deal-making and Hollywood interest. This diary communicates Lee's fierce drive and determination and is an engrossing document of the creative process. His fans oughtta get it. (October)