Highest 2 Lowest, the latest movie from Do the Right Thing and Inside Man director Spike Lee, gives the impression that Lee is deeply frustrated with the state of online discourse. The truth, as with most of Lee’s movies, is a little more complicated.
Lee’s updated take on Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low — adapted from Ed McBain’s pulpy 1959 crime novel — works within the same broad lines as both the book and the earlier movie. A rich man (in this case, music mogul David King, played by frequent Spike Lee collaborator Denzel Washington) faces personal and financial ruin when his son is kidnapped and held for ransom. But when it turns out the kidnappers actually grabbed his chauffeur’s son instead, he has to decide whether he’s willing to destroy his career and abandon his dreams to save someone else’s child. In Highest 2 Lowest, though, there’s a new wrinkle — David also has to reckon with what social media thinks about him.
That’s no small thing, particularly for a popular cultural figure like David, a former Time Person of the Year whose reputation as a savvy, principled producer made him a millionaire and brought his record company, Stackin’ Hits, some serious clout. As his business partner Patrick (The Wire’s Michael Potts) tells him, the public will be merciless if they think David let a boy die over money, and getting canceled will be the end of his career, his company, and the artists he represents.
“He’s telling the guy, ‘It’ll blow over, they’ll be on to the next thing,’” Lee told Polygon in a Zoom interview. “But he’s just lying to himself, because it’s going to be catastrophic if it’s seen that a young man was killed because of his actions, or inaction.”
Footwear mogul Douglas King in McBain’s book, and his High and Low equivalent, Kingo Gondô (the great Toshirô Mifune), both have to deal with the question of their public reputations if they refuse to pay the ransom. But it’s a much more pressing concern in Highest 2 Lowest, where public opinion shifts incredibly rapidly. Lee checks in on the memes and shitposts about David King as often as he does the headlines. It’s immediately obvious that the people posting about David have no idea what’s really going on in the kidnapping case, but feel compelled to weigh in with loud, insensitive, off-base opinions anyway.
“It’s really commentary on the world we live in,” Lee says. “It cannot be good for kids to be on this thing [waves his phone] 10, 8, 9 hours a day. I’m not a doctor. I’m not at the Mayo Clinic, NYU hospital. But there’s nothing good for young adults [in being] on the phone 10 hours a day. That’s the world we live in now.”
Still, Lee is adamant that the movie isn’t primarily about social media or online discourse. “The novel and Kurosawa’s film for me are about morals, morality,” he says. But using his movies to comment on social structures is automatic at this point. “I mean, I’ve been doing that since 1986, since my first film. So this is not something new.”
He adds that commenting on the tone of online discourse “fitted in like a surgeon, because we’re dealing with the music industry. It is not records, it’s not vinyl anymore — people get their music through phones, their everything through phones. So the commentary in this film is very current.”
Highest 2 Lowest is frequently scathing about social media. At one point, before the kidnapping pushes the plot in a darker direction, David takes his teenage son Trey (Aubrey Joseph) to task for chasing followers online instead of doing things in the real world that will entice people to follow him. But Lee isn’t trying to push people offline.
“I never said [they] should be off it,” he says. “I said 10 hours is a lot. Parents really can’t take away their kids’ phones — that ain’t working. So in everything, the word is moderation. […] My kids are grown now, but I went through that with them.”
Lee himself is an active Instagram user with more than two million followers. He says he’s found the platform useful in one particular regard: It regularly introduces him to up-and-coming musicians.
“There was a time where if you lived in Middle America [and wanted to be a performer], you had to go to LA or New York,” Lee says. “Now, young artists can’t afford rent in New York, LA. So it has been a tool for me to find young talent.” He points to examples like The Fergus McCreadie Trio, Aiyana-Lee, and Jensen McRae, all of whom are featured in Highest 2 Lowest. “I’m not using the word ‘discovered,’ [but] I became aware of them on Instagram, and they’re in the film.”
When Lee reaches out to artists via Instagram, they’re usually skeptical at first: “They all thought this was some BS, and not Spike,” he says. “But they made great contributions, music-wise, for this film.”
As to the less positive sides of interacting with people on social media, Lee says, “Some people have just got to get the delete, because if you just keep [reading] that stuff, it could have an effect on your mindset. There is a hundred percent negativity, and I don’t think that’s healthy. And be honest, some of that stuff is racist. Not all of it. But I just don’t want to be a part of that energy. I’m a positive person. [Grins] Most of the time.”
Lee can also relate to what Denzel Washington’s character goes through in Highest 2 Lowest, where the social media mobs alternately insult and embrace him, without ever really knowing anything about the difficult decisions he’s facing.
“That’s just something you got to deal with,” Lee says. “On Instagram, people were saying things about this film without even knowing about it, that it was going to be a ripoff of the original and this and that. I just let stuff like that roll off my back and keep going.”
Highest 2 Lowest is currently in limited theatrical release, and will begin streaming on Apple TV Plus on Sept. 5.
