Agony of New Orleans, Through Spike Lee’s Eyes

Boy putting on Shoes, New Orleans 1998
from the series Perilous Pilgrimage
all reproduction rights reserved William Greiner

Agony of New Orleans, Through Spike Lee’s Eyes

By FELICIA R. LEE

Published: August 3, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — From the beginning Spike Lee knew that Hurricane Katrina was a story he had to tell. Watching the first television images of floating bodies and of desperate people, mostly black, stranded on rooftops, he quickly realized he was witnessing a major historical moment. As those moments kept coming, he spent almost a year capturing the hurricane’s sorrowful consequences for a four-hour documentary, “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” to be shown on HBO this month.


excerpt from The New York Times Friday August 4, 2006