Ciclo Luzes na Caverna X:
”A imagem como mediador de
poder e conflito.”:
“DO THE RIGHT THING” 1989 | 2h [US]
De Spike Lee

_ENG

Lights in the Cave X Cinema Screenings: “The image as a mediator of power and conflict.”:
“DO THE RIGHT THING” 1989 | M/12 | 2h [US] (Não Dês Bronca - PT)
De Spike Lee
With Alexandre Braga

“DO THE RIGHT THING” unfolds under the sign of accumulated tension, where the neighborhood is not a backdrop but a field of forces. The heat is not mere weather; it becomes the metaphor of a system on the verge of boiling over. Each face filmed head-on demands a response; every verbal outburst carries decades of inequality. The question is not only moral — “to do the right thing?” — but structural: who holds the power to define what “right” means?
In Spike Lee, the image does not observe conflict from a distance; it intervenes. Saturated colors, confrontational framing, music that asserts identity — all form a dispositif in which seeing already implies participation. The image as mediator of power and conflict does not soften the fracture; it renders it visible, audible, unavoidable. The film offers no reconciliation; it offers exposure. And in exposing, it compels us to take a position.

The Lights in the Cave cinema cycle, now in its 10th edition, continues with the screening of “DO THE RIGHT THING”, by Spike Lee: a film in which urban space becomes an ethical laboratory. Over the course of a single summer day in Brooklyn, we follow the pulse of a neighborhood shaped by racial differences, economic tensions, and cultural affiliations that coexist without ever fully merging. The street is shared territory — but never entirely common ground.
The staging intensifies this fracture: saturated colors, direct confrontations with the camera, music that affirms identity and memory. Nothing is neutral. Each frame seems to ask who holds the floor, who occupies the center, who bears the weight of history. Rather than offering a conciliatory moral, the film exposes the impasse and returns to the spectator the burden of judgment. The image thus emerges as a mediator of power and conflict — not to resolve tension, but to render it visible and unavoidable.

After the screening, we invite the audience to an open conversation around the idea “The image as a mediator of power and conflict,” questioning the spectator’s position in the face of the tension unfolding on screen. What responsibility do we bear when witnessing the escalation of a collective impasse? To what extent is seeing already a form of participation?
We will reflect on the circulation of speech, the occupation of public space, and the fragile line between resistance and destruction. The film offers neither easy absolution nor simplistic condemnation; it keeps the question open. Here, cinema does not resolve the conflict — it compels us to consider where we stand when the image places us at the center of the street.