Spike Lee’s Angle

       In the very beginning of Act III, it is not hard to see the direction the prolonged documentary is headed for. Lee has very prominently spun a connecting web of actual hurricane tales to demonstrate his hypothesis: African-Americans are the most affected by Hurricane Katrina and are still suffering victims with no person to lay fault on, as no one accepts responsibility for their devastation.

       Lee provides witnesses who, in great detail, share their story with the camera.  It is obvious these people are hurting and have been treated very cruely and inhumane. However, Lee chose to include Rev. Al Sharpton and Kanye West, the stereotyped-cliches of African-American society who always have an opinion, and who happen to have the same opinion as Lee on this account. What was the purpose? Neither were personally affected, and yet they are glorified in Lee’s film for ‘representing’ hurricane victims. However, neither can relate to the real victims like Kimberly Polk, a mother who had to bury her five-year-old daughter as a resuly of the hurricane.

     The hurricane survivors are the ones who make the documentary real. However, they seem to be used as tools to exemplify the rationality and logic of Lee’s hypotheis. There is no denying that African -Americans were the most representative of those effected by the hurricane. However, Lee hardly goes on to search the ranks of government for those who did wrong against them, and only reprimands them without revealing them.

    It is understandable how the documentary is very true in many ways, but Lee does not go on beyond providing examples of those affected to blame their wrong-doers. When the Levees Broke is simply an emotional and devastating documentary absent of names and facts to lay blame on.