Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, And Jeffrey Wright On ‘Highest 2 Lowest,’ Humanity, And Their Cinematic Legacies

Returning to cinema with another joint, auteur Spike Lee packages a rock-hard fist of fury with a heroic musical soundtrack. Highest 2 Lowest marks his fifth motion picture with Denzel Washington and a cultural reinterpretation of historic Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s black-and-white 1963 film, High and Low. Out in theaters on August 15 and available to stream on Apple TV+ on September 5, Lee’s crime thriller is as much as a retelling through a Black lens as much as it’s a cinematic playground for Spike Lee and Denzel Washington. The filmmaker-and-muse duo pulverize through the original narrative by attempting not to imitate Kurosawa’s original film that is intrinsically a Japanese film — Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest joint is a Black New Yorker’s pride and joy. With the mastermind behind Brooklyn-based movies: Do the Right Thing (1989) and Crooklyn (1994), Lee undoubtedly knocks Highest 2 Lowest out the park just like the Yankees team did at the height of their game during their 1998 season run. Highest 2 Lowest has several, stylized moments where local New Yorkers take shots against Bostonian athletic teams — Spike evidently loves to size up their East Coast rivalry every chance he can get as a diehard Knicks fan.

“We had to put some hot sauce on it,” Spike Lee animatedly urges to me over the phone in New York city with a welcoming laugh. “It’s a blessing that I’ve had the privilege and honor to work with Denzel over five films, in order: Mo’ Better Blues, Malcolm X, He Got Game, Inside Man, and, now, Highest 2 Lowest. I didn’t know 18 years had flown by since our last film.”

Courtesy of A24.

At 70, Denzel Washington is stunting headphones, a NY Yankees cap, and an Air Jordan backpack, running through the streets of Brooklyn as David King in Highest 2 Lowest, the founder of Stackin’ Hits Records who has a personal vendetta against crime leader, Yung Felony played by A$AP Rocky. Washington and Lee’s first collaboration was for Mo’ Better Blues in 1990 and the jazz-forward film has ties with their latest project that also takes place in the underbelly of the New York music scene. “The material came to me before Spike,” Washington prefaces. “I brought the material to Spike. I love Spike. I felt there really was no one who could tell this story better than him, and I think I was right.”

Highest 2 Lowest was colorfully created by screenwriter Alan Fox, inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s original work and Ed McBain’s novel King’s Ransom. The A24 film directed by Lee functions off of the plight of the music industry when AI is on the precipice of taking over and an OG music mogul titan like David King with the “best ears in the business” can take back the reins and save Black musicianship and his community from danger. Spike Lee’s mastery in joining the protagonist’s dramatic emotional beats with the uptick of musical tempo illuminates the filmmaker’s intuitive skill of hearing story pacing in music. Jeffrey Wright (Paul Christopher) aids Washington’s character of King as his devoted friend and comrade when both of their sons are thought to be kidnapped for ransom. “The way the script reconsidered the relationship in the Kurosawa film, which is specifically a very Japanese relationship,” Wright explains sitting next to Denzel Washington. “The original work is very deferential and hierarchical in a caste way. [Paul and David’s] relationship is something that’s more specific to our society, and I think it was a very smart move and then Spike allowed us a lot of space to imagine their history together.”

During pivotal scenes on the phone with a professional kidnapper, Denzel Washington possessed that same high-intensity, emotional composure and ferocity that Toshiru Mifune carried throughout Kurosawa’s 1963 work as Kingo Gondo. The Japanese filmmaker-and-actor duo crafted 11 films together — samurai and crime heist classics that would enter him within the pantheon of Japanese cinematic history. Spike Lee and Denzel Washington share a similar legacy and cinematic footprint; helming Black American cinema. The personal relationships between the Black characters in Highest 2 Lowest is what makes the film so imposing. With a potent, soulful musical production that features James Brown tracks and new songs from A$AP Rocky, the classist feud between Black characters who are impacted by the system versus those who have benefitted off the culture that raised music puts protagonists at odds, painting a narrative similar to the Japanese nuances in the 20th century Yokohama-based drama. “I grew up in New York and my three closest friends probably added up to a hundred years in the jail system,” Denzel opens up. “There is nothing smooth about doing those years. He just came back home so I’ve lived it by the grace of God.”

Courtesy of A24.

Highest 2 Lowest is all about a nuclear Black family whose lives get upended by someone who lives beneath them in the streets while they live above in their luxury penthouse skyrise. Longtime Spike Lee-collaborator Ilfenesh Hadera plays Pam King (David King’s wife) and Aubrey Joseph embodies their son, Trey King. Similar to the Japanese caste system, they benefit off of the real culture below and Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright’s characters must reckon with returning to the underground world of NYC to bring back their loved ones. Spike Lee orchestrates Puerto Rican street parades, dazzling skyscraper shots, shouting Yankee fans in subways, bodega battles, free rel=”tag”>Denzel Washington Jeffrey Wright Spike Lee

The post Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, And Jeffrey Wright On ‘Highest 2 Lowest,’ Humanity, And Their Cinematic Legacies appeared first on Essence.