Spike Lee's New Documentary Keeps the Attention on New Orleans

by Josie Raymond · 2010-08-24 12:00:00 UTC
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The first half of Spike Lee's four-hour follow-up to "When the Levees Broke" premiered on HBO last night. It continues tonight. "If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise" documents New Orleans five years later. There's triumph (the Saints winning the Super Bowl) and there's tragedy (the Gulf Coast oil spill). Lee actually thought he'd finished filming in April. Then BP vomited millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf. So Lee and his crew went back several times and the denouement changed from a sports victory to an environmental disaster.

The effects of a tragedy like the oil spill are compounded by the fact that the Big Easy hasn't made nearly enough progress recovering from Hurricane Katrina in the last five years. Blame the recession. Or government incompetence. Or racial motivations. If blame could rebuild the city, though, it would be finished already. Did you watch part one of "If God Is Willing?" Will you watch part two? Watch the trailer below and share your thoughts.

Thankfully, Spike Lee isn't the only one paying attention to the battered city. The always on-target GOOD magazine just put out its "New Orleans issue" filled with fascinating info. If you're interested, be sure to check out the timeline of the city's highs and lows, a look at who stayed and who left after Katrina and ideas from urban planners about how to build new levees the right way.

There's also a new report, "The New Orleans Index at Five," from the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center and the Brookings Institution. It looks at 20 indicators of how far the city has come — and how far it has to go. The big picture (pdf) is that wages, entrepreneurship and median household incomes are on the rise. But the population is still less likely to have a college education than Americans generally, the racial wealth gap persists and the crime rate is unacceptably high. For every bit of good news, there's an equal and opposite bit of bad news. If you're a glass half full person, though, it's the other way around.

Photo credit: ♥ellie♥

Josie Raymond has reported from the streets of the South Bronx, written for several magazines that folded (not her fault) and fixed thousands of typos.
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