Lee uses humor, horror to tell the tale of Katrina

Sarah Rodman

Filmmaker Spike Lee doesn’t mince words when it comes to the federal government’s response to the devastation wrought in New Orleans last year by Hurricane Katrina.

Discussing his new HBO documentary “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” Lee bluntly told reporters, “I think somebody has to go to jail somehow for what was committed down there.”

The firebrand director — known for provocative films like “Do The Right Thing” and the recent “Inside Man” — also pulls no punches in the four-hour film, allowing individual New Orleanians to speak for themselves, sharing tales of horror, humor, outrage and survival. The first two hours premiere Monday at 9 p.m., followed by the second two at 9 p.m. Tuesday. HBO then will air an encore presentation of all four hours on August 29, the one-year anniversary of Katrina’s rampage through the Crescent City.

Lee was in Italy attending the Venice Film Festival that day. Like many others, he was glued to the news coverage of those unable to leave the rapidly flooding city.

“I was watching these horrific images on the television in my room, flipping back between BBC and CNN. And I was just really mad and sad,” said Lee. “And I knew, looking at these images — I said, ‘This is going to be a major moment in American history, and I want to do something about it.’”

So Lee and his editor Sam Pollard went south three months after the storm and began collecting footage and interviews with politicians, including New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, musicians, the news media and dozens of individuals affected by the crisis.

He came back with a surplus of material.

“There’s so many stories,” said Lee. “There’s this one guy named Paris, who was a student at the University of New Orleans. And his mother was a single parent. And he evacuated the city, but his mother wanted to stay. He went upstate. While he was away, he could not reach his mother by the phone. Once the city was opened up, he came back, went to the house, [and] could not find his mother. The house was searched, they said. And so for months, he went on the Internet and whatnot, trying to find his mother, thought she might have been missing, displaced, [in] some other state.

“A relative told him, ‘Go back to the house and call the cops and see what happens.’ He called the cops. They came. Said, ‘Go look for my mother.’ They found his mother in the kitchen under the refrigerator,” he continued. “She had been there for months. And you see — when you see this piece, you see the effect on him of having to discover … he thinks his mother has been missing and then discovers his mother has been hidden under a refrigerator. So his mother drowned in her own kitchen. And these are things I wanted to put in this piece.”

But Lee was impressed with the sense of humor people retained throughout their heartbreaking ordeal.

“Even though all the stuff they’d gone through, there were still many times where the stuff they were saying had the crew dying laughing. I know it might seem like it’s gallows humor,” said Lee, “but [it’s] just the spirit of the people. I think that’s what makes New Orleans the most unique city in America. And that’s tough for me to say, being from New York. But I got to give it up. New Orleans does hold that distinction. And you see it in the people.”

Lee stressed that Americans need to wake up to the fact that this kind of situation could happen anywhere in the U.S.

“It’s not just New Orleans. And we should be scared because if FEMA — you saw what they did. Pray to God you don’t have to depend on FEMA. So this stuff affects all Americans. This is not just New Orleans.”

Lee hopes to go back and follow up with many of his subjects in the future. “I think it’s very important that we realize that we don’t know what’s going to happen with New Orleans. It could be another five, ten, fifteen years. We don’t know what’s going to happen. So this is not the final statement on it. It’s an ongoing thing.”

Sarah Rodman is a staff music critic for the Boston Globe.