She’s Gotta Have It (1986)

US 84m, B&W, Colour
Director: Spike Lee; Cast: Tracy Camilla Johns, Tommy Redmond Hicks, John Canada Terrell, Spike Lee, Raye Dowell

Set in Brooklyn, and filmed in a pseudo documentary fashion, this is a clever satire about relationships in the African-American community. Introduced by intertitle, each of the characters speaks directly into the camera, and explains a little about their relationship with the film’s main character, Nola Darling, a young woman who has concurrent relationships with three men who vie for her exclusive attention. Through a series of often hilarious vignettes, which include some candid sex scenes, Lee offers a brilliantly conceived character study in which we learn that Nola Darling is an independent woman who is not a one man woman (Klaus Ming February 2015).