He's not my hero or anything. He's just an interesting case and he is a celebrity, which is what Doug was looking for. What really fascinates me about him is how his identification with Manhattan supercedes all other possible identities. I mean he's really not a "black man" and does not, so far as I can see, identify with african-americans. Yeah, I know, he made a lot of movies that center around racism -- but what was good/bad/interesting about all those movies is how irrelevant/arbitrary the notion of racism was revealed to be in all these movies.
Anyway I find him to be a bit of a misanthrope, a marginally interesting director, and a possibly interesting interviewee for Doug.
Joanna