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4 Little Girls (1997)
Directed by Spike Lee.
Directed by Spike Lee · Shot by Ellen Kuras · Music by Terence Blanchard · 102 min
How it was made
- As an NYU film student in 1983, Lee wrote to Chris McNair, father of victim Denise McNair, asking permission to tell her story on film, and was turned down; McNair only agreed roughly a decade later, once Lee had an established directing career and had shown the depth of his research.
- Lee originally intended to make a dramatic reenactment of the bombing before deciding a documentary approach would serve the story better.
- He brought only a small skeleton crew to Birmingham specifically so the victims' families would feel comfortable during their interviews.
- Editor and producer Sam Pollard, whose background was in documentary, shaped the film's structure: he and Lee spent three hours a day for two weeks screening dailies together starting at 7 a.m., building the film around parallel threads, the families and the history of the community, that converge on the bombing itself.
- Cinematographer Ellen Kuras joined the project after previously collaborating with Lee on an HBO anthology series, drawn to the film specifically for its roots in political documentary work.
Behind the scenes
Elsewhere
More by Spike Lee
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