'I just asked a normal question,' Rock tells MTV News about what prompted the director's passionate criticism against Hollywood.
By Josh Wigler, with reporting by Eric Ditzian
Chris Rock
Photo: MTV News
PARK CITY, Utah — The old refrain of "more money, more problems" seems to apply to Spike Lee's "Red Hook Summer," the director's new drama he unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday.
During a Q&A session following the screening of the filmmaker's religion-focused feature, actor and comedian Chris Rock (at Sundance for his new film "2 Days in New York" from Julie Delpy) asked Lee if he would have done anything differently had he "actually gotten... studio money" for the film. Lee's response was a fiery one, fueled with comments that condemned the Hollywood studio system for knowing "nothing about black people."
"We never went to the studios with this film. I bought a camera and said we're gonna do this mother[bleeping] film ourselves. I didn't need a mother[bleeping] studio telling me something about Red Hook! They know nothing about black people," Lee said in response to Rock's question, according to the New York Post. "And they're gonna give me notes about what a 13-year-old black boy and girl do in Red Hook? [Bleep] no!"
Lee's response was nothing short of perplexing to Rock, who told MTV News that he "just asked a normal question."
"I just asked him how it would have been different if he'd had it financed by a studio. If he had more money," he continued. "That was it. That's all I said. Everything else, I don't know. You gotta ask Spike."
In "Red Hook Summer," Lee tells the story of a young boy sent by his mother from Atlanta to spend the summer in Red Hook, Brooklyn, with his grandfather, a strict preacher he's never met. The film stars Clarke Peters, Jules Brown and Thomas Jefferson Byrd.
Do you think Spike Lee's criticism at Sundance out of line? Sound off in the comments section!
The 2012 Sundance Film Festival is officially under way, and the MTV Movies team is on the ground reporting on the hottest stars and the movies everyone will be talking about in the year to come. Keep it locked with MTV Movies for everything there is to know about Sundance.
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