Summer
of Sam
(1999)
- Information at Internet Movie Database
- Looking Closer, review by Jeffrey Overstreet, "searching for truth, beauty and meaning in the movies."
- Review, Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality & Health - Spiritual Practices for Human Being.
- Themes
- Clean/Unclean
- Ritchie's affinity for punk music and his affectation of different cultural styles leads his community to suspect him of being the killer - he becomes "unclean" to them
- Dissention/Sectarianism
- Fear of the killer leads the folks in the neighborhood to begin to imagine which of their own must be the killer.
- Fear
- Fear of the killer, and fear of their own lack of control over their neighborhood, and lack of knowledge of any world but their own leads the group to stalk and attack one of their own who has "become different"
- Institutional Evil
- The scene where Spike Lee interviews the folks in the black community for "the darker perspective" on the horror of the killings. The Son-of-Sam killings are only news because they are happening in the white neighborhoods. Similar events happen in the black neighborhoods all of the time, but they are "not news".
- Scapegoat
- Ritchie as the scapegoat "sacrifice" for the fears of the community.
- Wrongly Accused
- Ritchie is mistakenly accused of being the killer.
- Clean/Unclean
