The pause must have lasted only a few seconds, but Spike Lee could not formulate the words to describe what had happened. How in the days after Hurricane Katrina, a man was forced to leave his mother’s body behind, as he had to board a bus with other survivors like himself.

This man, Lee told the audience, was ordered by the National Guard to leave the body in its wheelchair, under the hot New Orleans sun. The son had to write his name on her body, one of many among the other bodies left behind in the New Orleans Superdome.

Then came the pause. The audience leaned in. The OnCenter ballroom, packed with 1,500 people, was silent.

Lee continued, slowly.

This man, featured in the 2006 documentary ‘When the Levees Broke,’ had to label his mother’s body to ensure that he, the son, would be contacted and allowed to reclaim his mother.

Just one of the hundreds of interviews Lee had to do for his documentary on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this story has stuck with him and was the first he shared with Thursday night’s audience.

Fans of the controversial and award-winning director filled the OnCenter ballroom for an hour and a half of reflection upon the effects of Hurricane Katrina and how it affected Lee’s movie making career.

‘For the condition that society is now, this type of lecture and inspirational word is needed, especially at our age,’ Candice Celestin, a sophomore communications and rhetorical studies major, said.

The event, hosted by the Black Communications Society and Department of Communications and Rhetorical Studies, included a beat poetry reading and two musical performances – one by graduate student Ryan Travis and another by the six-member a cappella group Anoint to Praise – before Lee addressed the audience.

Lee received a standing ovation as he made his way up to the stage. He began by describing how his documentary was born, how he had been at the Venice Film Festival when his wife called him and told him to turn on the TV.

He knew right away while watching both the BBC and CNN coverage of the Aug. 29, 2005 events that ‘he wanted to talk to those people standing on their roofs holding signs, asking for help, as helicopters flew over them.’

He let the audience in on the fact that when he approached HBO with his idea for a two-hour long, musically themed remembrance of and tribute to New Orleans, Lee had other plans. He knew two hours wasn’t going to be able to tell the stories of those affected, once he traveled to the city’s Ninth Ward and saw the ruins.

‘It looked like a set for an apocalyptic Steven Spielberg film,’ Lee told the audience. ‘It looked like bombs had been dropped and wiped everything out. There were no bugs, no birds. Everything was gray.’

The conversation Lee had Thursday night, while it centered on his documentary, shifted to a more political tone toward the event’s end.

‘This next election is so critical,’ he said. ‘It is no joke. You gotta get your mind right and understand what is happening. You gotta vote and make an intelligent, informed decision when you pull that lever. We are in a crisis, and we’re not playing out there.’

Brought up several times during the event – both by him and during the audience question-and-answer period – was the issue of how Lee handled the sensitive, emotional interviews with documentary subjects. For Lee, ‘it was always a heart-wrenching thing to do.’

Lee said he can meet someone, and in an hour is being told that stranger’s life story.

‘He is so real and down to earth,’ Sharifa Wilkinson, a freshman health and exercise major, said. ‘It’s like having a conversation with an old friend you haven’t seen in years.’

akalliso@syr.edu

Published on February 21, 2008 at 12:00 pm