She's Gotta Have It

In retrospect, it’s surprising that Spike Lee’s debut feature was greeted as such a major breath of fresh air. A few good jokes, an all-black cast, and the force of Lee’s personality notwithstanding, the fact is She’s Gotta Have It is as retro as can be, a cross between early Cassavetes and every insufferably arty student film of the ’60s. This new laserdisc version restores approximately four minutes cut from the theatrical print (mostly sexy stuff), and there are all sorts of nifty bonuses — lengthy outtakes, the director’s Nike TV ads with Michael Jordan, and an informative secondary audio track by Lee and his cinematographer, Ernest Dickerson. Interestingly enough, at the very end Lee basically cops to the picture’s flaws; it is, he allows, the least favorite of his films. Apparently, he hasn’t watched School Daze lately. B-