Hello, my name's Justin McLuhan.

I'm here today with Will Sloan.

And you're listening to The Important Cinema Club.

And today we're going to be talking about director, cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson.

Who the hell is that?

He is a cinematographer of all of Spike Lee's early films. Do the right thing. She's got to have it. School days. Jungle fever. He's the man... Malcolm X. Malcolm X. He's the man who helps Spike Lee do the famous shot in Jungle Fever where Denzel Washington screams to the heaven and goes, No! And it zooms into his face. Is Ernest Dickerson responsible for when the character is on what looks like a conveyor belt as

he's moving towards the camera?

I don't know. Do you think he created that and Spike Lee just kind of accepted it for himself?

And Ernest Dickerson looks at him like, Dr. Frankenstein observing his monster, being like,

what have I done?

But Ernest Dickerson also went his own way, and he directed films like Juice, the famous

for having the Tupac Shakur performance, a Demon Knight. Tales from the Crypt Presents,

Demon Night. Bulletproof and a whole bunch of television afterwards. And also, let us not forget, the Snoop Dog vehicle, which I just watched last night for the very first time, Bones.

Jimmy Bones.

Have you ever wanted Snoop Dog to be an actual dog?

You know, I think the thing that most sold me on Ernest Dickerson, and I had to be sold on this topic, but it was the idea

of finally watching Bones, which I always sort of wanted to see, but never quite had an excuse.

You push this podcast back, you're like, I need more time to watch Bones. Yes. So Ernest Dickerson,

I think, is important for a number of reasons. As a cinematographer, defining the most important film, the Spike Lee style.

We're going to get into that a little bit more.

He's one of the only black genre directors that was working in Hollywood in the 90s

and passionate about what he was doing.

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