Spike Lee sounds off on the aftermaths of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil disaster

Spike Lee at the New York City press junket for "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

Sometimes the things that happen in real life are more mind-boggling than what you could fabricate for a fictional movie. That’s what filmmaker Spike Lee experienced when he was making the documentary "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise," the follow-up to "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts," his 2006 Emmy-winning documentary about the Hurricane Katrina disaster. Like its predecessor, "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" (directed by Lee, one of the documentary’s producers) is a four-hour HBO miniseries that takes a hard look at the government and corporate mishaps and corruption that led to the suffering of thousands of people, particularly the poor and disenfranchised. The documentary also brings audiences a close-up view into the lives of some of the survivors and those who are helping to rebuild the disaster-struck areas.

"If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" (which premieres in two parts on August 23 and August 24 at 9 p.m. Eastern/Pacific Time) explores how New Orleans and other parts of the Mississippi Gulf Coast have recovered five years after the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. The "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise" documentary includes the city’s jubilant celebration of the New Orleans Saints winning Super Bowl XLIV in February 2010. But what happened two months after that Super Bowl was something that no one could have predicted and that changed the direction of the documentary: the British Petroleum (BP) oil disaster, which began on April 20, 2010, and devastated the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. Many of the Mississippi Gulf Coast residents who were hit hard by Hurricane Katrina had their livelihoods and environment destroyed by the BP oil disaster. I recently sat down with the always outspoken Lee at the New York press junket for "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise," and he sounded off on why this particular documentary changed him like no other he’s done before, and why he’s disgusted over how the Hurricane Katrina and BP disasters have been handled.

Spike Lee (center) in New Orleans while filming "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

Did you get more or less cooperation in making "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" compared to "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"?

We had cooperation the first time around. I mean, when you’re doing a documentary, there are always going to be people — for scheduling reasons or other reasons — who don’t want to speak to you, but you just keep it moving …

What can you say about the reports that BP refused to be interviewed for "If God Is Willing Da Creek Don’t Rise"?

We offered to do [an interview] with BP, but they didn’t want to do it. It’s not a big thing. I’m not losing sleep over it. They would’ve told us more lies anyway. It would’ve had no effect on this documentary that we did not get a spokesperson from BP to get before the camera.

What can people expect to see in "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" that they haven’t seen in the on-screen promos for the documentary?

There’s a lot of stuff. There’s five years’ worth of stuff that’s happened since August 29, 2005. We deal with Sean Penn and see what he’s doing in Haiti. There are people who were in the first one ["When the Levees Broke" documentary]. Education. Housing. We make a trip to Mississippi. There’s a bunch of stuff …

Spike Lee in New Orleans while filming "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"

Was there anyone who saw "When the Levees Broke" who was so moved by it that he or she made a tremendous impact on the life of anyone featured in that documentary?

You remember Donnell Herrington, the young African-American male in "Levees," who in New Orleans got shot by a vigilante, a white [man]. The FBI finally indicted the guy because of that story being in "Levees" and also because of the great investigative journalism of A.C. Thompson. This [vigilante] person allegedly shot and tried to kill Donnell. So that guy is going to be found guilty, and he’s going away for a long time. I think his name is Roland Bourgeois. That’s in the third episode [of "If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"].

Do you think how the BP oil disaster was handled is as embarrassing to Barack Obama as the embarrassment George W. Bush had over how the Hurricane Katrina disaster was handled?

We’ll have to see. This thing is not over, and a lot of stuff’s going to be fought out in the courtrooms. I’ve been perplexed how BP’s been allowed to run stuff. In the fourth part [of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"], there’s a clip where [U.S. Secretary of the Interior] Ken Salazar is saying that BP is responsible, and we’re going to keep a boot on their neck. And then you cut to Obama the next day saying, "There’s no need for that type of language."

Well, I don’t know where everybody else is from, but I’m from Brooklyn. And if you kill 11 people, a boot on the neck is mild. BP murdered 11 people — whether you want to use "manslaughter, "negligence," the fact remains that 11 families have been changed forever. And for Ken Salazar to say we’re going to keep our boot on BP’s neck, that’s light sh*t to me. So again, the question comes to me: "Why all this reverence for BP?" Are they that powerful that Obama can say, "We can’t say, ‘Keep a boot on their neck’"?

Spike Lee at an anti-BP rally in New Orleans, May 2010

Do you think the right people will be punished for the BP oil disaster or do you think that most of the people responsible will get away with it?

We’ll see. I think somebody should go to prison for the rest of their lives. Also, I’m worried because we’re reading that the government scientists are saying the oil has disappeared. Boldface lie. This BP thing is the largest oil disaster in the history of the world — 15 times what the Exxon Valdez thing was in Alaska. That [Exxon Valdez oil spill] was 20 years ago, and they’re still cleaning that up! So [the BP oil disaster] is 20 times that, and now all of it disappeared? Are they saying that 75 percent of it that was on the surface has been recovered? I don’t believe that.

You go watch "Law & Order," where people buy experts to testify. BP is in the process, as of April 20 [in 2010], of buying up all the experts in the sciences to deal with this. They’ll be on their payroll, and they’ll testify on their behalf when all of this stuff is resolved in the courts. A lot of ways they’re trying to get around that — a lot of these scientists work at universities and they [BP] make donations to the endowment and the science department of these universities and colleges. Again, it’s about money.

Do you think "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" will have any effect on the November 2010 elections?

I don’t know if this film is going to have an effect on that.

Spike Lee at the New Orleans premiere of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

How do you think "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" would have differed in tone had the BP oil spill not occurred?

The first day of filming was the Super Bowl, and that was their Mardi Gras. So it would’ve been very happy, more upbeat, more positive. But everything changed April 20 [in 2010].

Can you talk about your first-hand, eyewitness experience of seeing the aftermath of the Hurricane Katrina disaster?

It’s different when you see it with your own eyes. I remember the first time going to the Lower Ninth Ward, our first day of shooting in Louisiana, in New Orleans, the day after Thanksgiving [in 2005]. It looked like the set of some Steven Spielberg "end of the world" film that he was yet to make. I had seen the pictures in newspapers and magazines. I had seen the stuff on TV, but to see the magnitude of the whole lower Ninth Ward …

You have to remember 80 percent of New Orleans is underwater. And with the exception of what Brad Pitt is doing with his Make It Right Foundation — and Common Ground [Relief], Lower [Ninth Ward] NENA — not that much has been done. The debris has been cleared away, but you see a lot of stone steps leading up to where the houses used to be. And it’s just an empty of lot of weeds. And it’s not just the Lower Ninth Ward. You know in your mind, it’s going to take five, 10, 15 years for the city to get back on its feet, but when you live there, and you’re going to and from your home, and you see these houses look like nothing’s been done to them since 2005, it’s a constant visual reminder that things aren’t going as fast as you would like them to go.

You’ve also visited Haiti after the January 2010 earthquake disaster there …

Haiti is worse. No debris has been cleared in Haiti.

 Spike Lee in New Orleans while filming "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"

After all that you’ve witnessed and documented, what do you think are the solutions to these disaster problems?

I don’t have the answers. I’m just a filmmaker. [He says jokingly] Didn’t you get the memo? I had the answer for racism in "Do the Right Thing" …

In "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,"one of the controversies that you spotlighted was how after Hurricane Katrina happened, politicians decided to tear down a lot of New Orleans-area public housing for low-income people instead of repairing the public housing, and "mixed-income" housing was allowed to be built in its place. Did you agree with that decision?

No, because it was a gangster Corleone move. It was on the drawing boards, "What are we going to do about the proliferation of these poor, black people living in these projects?" But there’s no way to drag people out of their house. But with Hurricane Katrina and the breach in the levees and the city being 80 percent underwater, there was a mandatory evacuation, so people had to leave. When they came back, their sh*t was locked up!

And here’s the thing you have to think about: These houses were made when they built stuff to last: brick, mortar. I mean, you couldn’t bomb that! When people came back after the moratorium/mandatory evacuation was lifted, the sh*t was locked up, and there’s a barb-wire fence around the projects. You can’t get in. And two years later, they knocked the motherf*ckers down. So consequently, here we are today, and 37 percent of the black population of New Orleans has yet to return.

Now, you have to be analytical about this, because you have — I don’t know what the numbers are — a portion of that percent who are people who said, "Hell, I’m not coming back. I moved to Houston, I moved to Atlanta. I’m fine now. I’m making a lot more money, my kids are going to better schools, have better education and a better home." Their standard of living is higher.

Conversely, you have the people who are like, "I want to come home." But a lot of these people live in these Lafitte [housing projects]. St Bernard’s Parish, the projects were knocked down, rents have quadrupled, and there are no jobs! So they can’t get back. As Ned Sublette said in the piece ["If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"], 35 percent of African-Americans [from New Orleans] are in exile. They can’t get back.

Spike Lee at the New Orleans premiere of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

Do you feel that your documentaries have changed you as a filmmaker, compared to your fiction films?

Each film is different, but I will tell you this, to answer your question: What has changed me about this film ["If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"] was before, in my ignorance, I really wasn’t into this environmental/green [movement], but now, I’m turning off lights like a motherf*cker! You know, recycling, I never did that before. Now, 40 Acres [and a Mule], my [production] office, we’re on it. I think as African-Americans, we’ve been slow — I know we have many other problems — to make this [change], because we’ve got a lot of other sh*t. But this is our planet too, what we’re going to leave for our kids, so we’ve got to help out and stop driving these big-ass cars.

This is the effect the film has had on me, especially if you think about the fourth hour of the film, which is all BP. All of us have to think about what we can do to get off our addictions to fossil fuel, because it’s not going to last forever. And all the stuff we do has a great impact on this planet that we live in. It’s the only one we’ve got. I have no intention of living on the moon. My children have no intention, or their grandchildren either.

What footage did you want to put in "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" but you couldn’t because of time constraints?

There’s always going to be that, but that’s the great thing about DVDs. We just put it on the DVD … We were done shooting before April 20 [in 2010]. We had our four hours. After April 20, we made nine more trips all around this BP thing. So [in] the last hour [of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"], no one knew that this thing was going to be the biggest oil disaster in the history of the world.

Spike Lee at the New York City press junket for "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

What do you think "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" and "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" say about America as a country?

Greed … Dr. John said it: "Money is the root of all evil." And it was greed shown on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers that brought about the toppling of the levee system. And BP was greedy also. A simple device cost $500,000 for a blowout preventer. They didn’t want to buy it. They were behind schedule. It cost them half a million dollars a day. They’re leasing that rig from Transocean and they were behind schedule. And in order to get on schedule, they had to skip over safety precautions.

And now 11 people are dead, and we have the largest oil disaster in the history of the world. They did it because they put profits and the bottom line — that weighed more to them than people’s lives. So that would be the thing that ties those things together: the eight hours of "When the Levees Broke" and "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise." If things continue like this, it’s going to be the demise of this country, where people get positions — whether appointed or voted in — and it all becomes about them trying to get as much money as they can. And if people get hurt or harmed or die in the process, it’s like, "F*ck it!"

Who do you think deserves to go to prison over the BP oil disaster?

There’s going to be a court case. I have faith in Attorney General Eric Holder. And the people who are guilty — as they say in the old Warner Bros. gangster films — they’re going to get the book thrown at them.

Grammy-winning musician Terence Blanchard, Spike Lee and New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu at the New Orleans premiere of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

What can you say about any donations that HBO made to victims of Hurricane Katrina?

A ton of money went to various nonprofit organizations from the DVD sales of "When the Levees Broke."

Are you going to send a copy of "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise" to the White House?

Yeah, I’ll send them one.

Some people say that the BP oil spill was worse than Hurricane Katrina because it was a mad-made disaster and it has a larger negative impact on the environment. Do you agree with that belief? And if so, do you think you’ll do a follow-up documentary on the long-term impact of the BP oil disaster?

I don’t know what I’ll be doing in the future with documentaries. But I think that, to answer the first part of your question, you always get in trouble when you compare disasters. The Holocaust, slavery. [Hurricane] Katrina, BP. You can’t win when you try to compare disasters. You never win, so I’m not doing that.

Spike Lee in New Orleans while filming "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts"

How much do you believe in the theory that the levees in New Orleans were purposely blown up?

Well, here’s the thing: There’s still a large portion of the African-American community that believes that those levees were blown up. There’s a history to that in various other floods. Whether I believe that or not has nothing to do with me as a filmmaker. Whether it’s an urban myth or not, the fact remains that a large part of black New Orleans believes that.

So if they believe it, I was going to put it in the film. But remember, as soon as they said that, I cut directly to people saying, "You know what? I don’t know about that." It wasn’t just that. People forget that we also gave people a chance to contest that, and they rebutted against each other, and the edit was side-by-side.

Can you talk about how the Hurricane Katrina survivors feel like their trauma seems to be never-ending?

First of all, you have to understand that if you look at education, wealth, health — just look at all the categories that you judge a state — Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, every year, it’s like nose-to-nose that they’re [ranked] 48, 49 and 50. So no political power; they’re poor. You get beat up. People like [New Orleans] Mayor [Mitch] Landrieu said, "You all think we’re ignorant, we can’t read and write, we don’t know what we’re doing." So that will give you a complex.

And then in the space of four years: Hurricane Katrina, the levees break, 80 percent of the city of New Orleans is underwater, and then you’re hit with the largest oil spill in the history of the world. All that in less than four years? As people say in the film, "Goddamn, what did we do? God, what did we do to deserve this?" Look, I don’t blame them for drinking … The Charity Hospital [in New Orleans] that dealt with mental health got closed, so the only way people get treated for mental illnesses, you have to get arrested and go to jail. So the suicide rate in New Orleans is double of the rest of the country … So people are still dealing with this trauma of this stuff that they’re going through. And the children, they’re the ones really dealing with the stress. Five years later, they’re still being affected by it.

Spike Lee at the New York City press junket for "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

How do you feel about how Barack Obama is handling being President of the United States?

I’m not trying to sound like Glenn Beck, but there comes a point where like, "Dude, you’ve been here two years. So how may times can you keep going to the well that [George W.] Bush did it?" As I said before, the disappointing thing to me in this whole BP thing was just coming to the realization that BP is more powerful than the United States of America. If BP is more powerful than the United States of America, then they’re more powerful than any other country in the world.

It has to be, because BP dictated to the Coast Guard who could come in these waters or not. BP dictated to the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] who could fly. BP dictated [to] Lisa Jackson and the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency]. When Lisa, with all due respect, sent a letter as director of the EPA that we’re worried about the dispersants and this particular dispersant corrects it, what did they write back? "We’re using it anyway." Basically, they were saying, "F*ck you! We’re still using it!" Something’s wrong. They should not be able to dictate to the United States government what the f*ck we’re going to do!

And now, all of a sudden since the well got capped, government scientists are popping out saying that 75 percent of the oil is gone. You know what we say in Brooklyn? My Italian-American friends? "Get the f*ck out of here!" Who believes that? This is the world’s greatest oil spill, ever! They’re still cleaning up in Alaska, 20 years later [after the Exxon Valdez oil spill]. Now all of a sudden, "Presto chango! Abracadabra!" This sh*t has evaporated into thin air? Another Brooklyn saying: "Nah!" Or we go down South: "Hell to the nah!"

How did you decide which people from "When the Levees Broke" you wanted to also have in "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise"?

That’s a good question. It was very obvious who epitomized the voice of ["When the Levees Broke"]. So the obvious choice was Phyllis [Montana-LeBlanc]. I asked Phyllis, "I need you to write a spoken-word piece. I want to begin the [‘If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise’] documentary with you. All you’ve got to do is make sure you put the title in the thing." And we shot that. We shot the whole thing, but after April 20, we were like, "You’ve got to write some more about the oil spill." So we went down and had to shoot that again. So that beginning is really from two different days.

Spike Lee (center) in New Orleans while filming "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise"

What’s your response to critics who say that you just like to cause trouble with these Hurricane Katrina documentaries?

You don’t react to that. Causing trouble? I didn’t kill 11 people! I didn’t bring about who-knows-what destruction to America’s wetlands, the ecology, the fish, fishermen who’ve been fishing and shrimping for many generations. I didn’t make that up.

How would you describe your style as a documentary filmmaker, in terms of how objective you wanted to be and how personally involved you wanted to get in the lives of the people you were documenting?

Yeah, I’ve got some beer friends now. I get mad love in New Orleans. In doing these two documentaries, I’ve got people who’ll be my friends for life … And it’s not just a black thing. White people come up to me and say, "Spike, we appreciate what you’re doing for New Orleans. We appreciate what you’re doing for the Gulf states. Keep letting the world know what’s going on down here." It’s not black or white sh*t. It’s like people are appreciative.

Spike Lee at the Television Critics Association press tour in Beverly Hills, California, in July 2010

If you had a chance to talk to Barack Obama about "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise," what would you say to him?

We asked to speak to the president, and he’s been very busy. So I understood why he could not do it. But if I were able to interview the president, my first question would be about reprimanding Ken Salazar for using those very "abrasive, hard" words: "Keep a boot on BP’s neck." And my second question would be, "Why did you not use [Lieutenant] General [Russel] Honoré?" And other people said this … He was the hero of [Hurricane] Katrina. And people say, "General Honoré is retired." Thad Allen was retired too, and they brought him up to run this [BP oil crisis] on the Coast Guard.

And I’ve been thinking about this because there’s no reason in the world why General Honoré should not have been a part of this. But then I thought about the power of BP, and they chose Thad Allen, because they know General Honoré was not going to do, like he says in the film, "Don’t let it get confused with who’s paying with who’s running things." General Honoré would not have allowed the Coast Guard to dictate who could go when and where. He would not have allowed BP to let the FAA to determine who could fly. He would not have allowed BP to dictate to the EPA about corrections.

And this is something I’ve been thinking about too: We’re all worried about the oil that’s in the gulf, but no way does BP know where that dispersant is. And what it comes down to is that we might find in 20 years that that dispersant was more damaging, more lethal than the oil. So when we start having two-headed babies … I’m not trying to be funny, but no one knows. Corexit has never been used in this amount. In fact, Corexit as been outlawed in the U.K., the home of British Petroleum. They won’t even allow the sh*t to be used there. And so this stuff gets into the food chain and will have ramifications for who knows how long?

And then we’re in the hurricane season. Thank God it’s been all right so far, but they had predicted that this would be just as active a hurricane season as it was in 2005. In 2005, because of Hurricane Katrina, they had so many storms, they ran out of letters from A to Z and had to go to the Greek alphabet. And the combination of Category 3, 4, 5 hurricanes over oil … that could be catastrophic. But the Saints won the Super Bowl. Who dat!

What’s next for you?

I don’t know. Nothing I can really talk about.

Photo credits: Photos #1, 8, 11: Carla Hay. Photos #2, 3, 6, 10: HBO. Photo #13: Reuters. All other photos: AP.