Most surprisingly, the extremely outspoken and politically active Lee made his greatest contributions to cinema with two unflinching, but straightforward documentaries, "4 Little Girls" (1997) and "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" (2006), both of which earned him considerable acclaim and several awards, confirming that Lee was no ordinary filmmaker content simply playing by the rules. Not satisfied with staying behind the camera, Lee stood front and center in a series of Nike and Levis commercials in the 1980s and 1990s, which featured the bicycle messenger character he played in "She's Gotta Have It." But like any filmmaker, Lee had his share of mediocre films - namely "'Mo Better Blues" (1990), "Girl 6" (1996) and "She Hate Me" (2004) - though the triumphs of "Malcolm X" (1992), "He Got Game" (1998), "25th Hour" (2002) and the mainstream crime thriller "Inside Man" (2006) more than made up for his missteps. His most widely known production, "Do the Right Thing" (1989), proclaimed with no uncertainty that dealing with racism on film could be both challenging and entertaining. Right out of the gate, Lee directed a series of films that dealt with the uneasy topic of race in his often brash, unapologetic style. Starting with "She's Gotta Have It" (1986), a stylish, ultra-low budget comedy that became an unexpected commercial success and planted him firmly on the map. Perhaps one of the most controversial filmmakers to emerge during the explosion of independent directors in the 1980s, Spike Lee single-handedly changed the way African-Americans were perceived in Hollywood films.
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