The latest edition of Scout Tafoya’s “The Unloved” video essay series celebrates Spike Lee’s “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” Lee’s 2014 film that comes from an era of reinvention along with 2012’s “Red Hook Summer.” Contextualizing Lee’s radical erotic vampire tale within a polarizing filmography, Tafoya defines “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” as “an intoxicating, percussive love poem shines a bright light on things Lee loves most and by which he is obsessed.” Tafoya makes the case that with films like “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus,” Lee “will probably never find full acceptance here, no matter how brilliant and idiosyncratic his work has been.” “Maybe someday,” Tafoya concludes, “we’ll look back at this period of rebirth, and see how good we had it and what we let get away.”
To watch more of Scout Tafoya’s video essays from his series The Unloved, click here.