Summer of Sam

New York City in the 70s was often a very threatening place. Crime was seemingly contaminating every corner, graffiti defaced every subway car, the economy was in the toilet, and the city literally smelled like one. In the summer of 1977, a tortured soul known as the "Son of Sam" (ne David Berkowitz) added to the dread, shooting and killing several people with a .44 as he made his way among the boroughs. The city was paralyzed in fear. Eight million residents scared, one guy doin' the scarin.' The patented and famously stereotypical NYC attitude and posturing may have been humbled a bit, but it was also summertime, and with the mercury hitting upwards of 104 degrees Farenheit, something was bound to give. Without a doubt, many things did. As Newsday columnist Jimmy Breslin narrates in co-writer/director Spike Lee's 1999 SUMMER OF SAM, there were/are "eight million stories in the Naked City."

How in that brutal summer serial killer David Berkowitz affected some of those stories may well never have traveled beyond the walls of so many walk-ups and brownstones. Lee's dramatization focuses on the lives of a group of Italian-Americans in the Bronx. The neighborhood stereotypes are on full display, alpha males like Vinny (John Leguizamo) cheat on their wives, gamble, vice their lives away, and, most importantly to this story, distrust outsiders. The women, however, are not blameless; they also cheat and gossip and remain insular. How Lee portrays these characters is quite accurate. I have relatives who might watch this film and feel it is a documentary. The behavioral patterns observed in SAM continue Lee's keen eye on that landscape demonstrated so vividly in his JUNGLE FEVER, DO THE RIGHT THING, etc. For the latter film, the action was set in the predominantly African-American community in Brooklyn known as Bedford-Stuyvesent. An Italian pizzeria operated by an Italian family forms much of the story arc and catalyst. Lee knows Bed-Stuy, but as an outsider to the Italian turf (such as the Bensonhurst we see in FEVER), he may see what might as well be another country with perhaps even sharper eyes. Think of all the films about America made by foreigners, how they observed things with uncomfortable familiarity. 

Wim Wenders has done it several times. Right now I'm thinking of the fine French director Louis Malle, how pointed his ATLANTIC CITY and ALAMO BAY were. SUMMER OF SAM is unique amongst Lee's films in several ways, most obviously as there are no major African-American characters in this piece. We remain mostly in the Italian community, watching Vinny self-destruct with intoxicants and joyless sex. We also meet Richie (Adrien Brody) a confused kid trying on a gallery of alter egos: punk rocker, cabaret dancer. It proves to be very dangerous, sticking out like that. The neighborhood peeps notice when someone doesn't toe the norm. If you don't get married and punch a clock and watch baseball and knock back a few with the others, there must be something wrong with you. With the unknown identity of the serial killer a summertime obsession, being different labels you a suspect. Like that priest down the block, or even Richie. It will prove to be tragic. The mob will gradually form, small minds growing more reptilian as the fear and thermostat rise. Then, there will also be a citywide blackout to tip things over. 

This is a powerful movie. Lee lets the gritty, sweaty atmosphere swirl and build around everyone. We hear Phil Rizzuto call the Yankees games on the soundtrack throughout SUMMER OF SAM, adding authenticity, allowing us to feel and even taste the summer, the stale air in the backseat of a car, the chemicals in a beauty parlor. This is truly an immersive film. The desperation would be culpable as more citizens were slaughtered. Things get so bad that the NYPD even enlist a popular mob kingpin (Ben Gazzara) to put his forces into the investigation. Everyone was tainted, wrecked as the summer wore on. The Son of Sam himself is seen in a few scenes, disintegrating mentally along with everyone else. One perhaps ill-advised (but still frightening) scene shows the killer being instructed verbally by a dog to continue his crime spree. The sense of time and place, absolutely vital in film, is nailed here by Lee. The actors are appropriately jangled and the soundtrack pulses with all sorts of music: R & B, disco, and even The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again" is used very effectively during the concluding passages. Roger Daltrey's howl in that tune might as well have represented the sentiments all of NYC in the summer of 1977, one of the darkest periods in that city's history.