Whether you like Spike Lee's movie's or don't like his movies, on a large scale it doesn't matter. Spike Lee makes the movies he wants to make and translates the stories he wants people to be aware of. And being a vocal advocate for the rights and advancement of African Americans, making movies about untold yet significant events in black history is Spike Lee's way of educating not only African Americans but all cultures within the melting pot of the United States and the world. Now, at one of the most significant moments for African Americans and politics, Lee is back to tell another historical event with his latest film, Miracle at St. Anna, about four black soldiers of the 92nd Infantry Division who risk their lives to save the life a young boy but get trapped in a small Italian town during the Italian Campaign of World War II.

At the recent Toronto Film Festival where Spike Lee premiered Miracle at St. Anna, The Deadbolt was on hand at the official press conference to hear what Lee had to say about adapting the James McBride novel, what appealed to him most about the story, and how it relates to the U.S. Election in relation to African Americans and the nomination of Democratic party leader Barack Obama.

It seems like it is not just a movie about black soldiers in World War WII, but is also an Italian movie about the Italians. Can you talk about what brought you to this?

SPIKE LEE: The novel is the source, written by the man to my right, James McBride, who wrote a great book, which interweaves many many different stories. So we all believe this film is not just about the Buffalo Soldiers 92nd Division. It’s about many things about the conflict that was going on in Italy at the time. You would say civil war, torn between the Italian citizens who wanted liberty versus the ones who still wanted to stay under the fascist regime of Mussolini. James and I also thought about having some Nazi characters that are not as multi-dimensional as they can be, so it’s many different things. But here’s the thing - I like to say I’ve been doing this a long time and I really try to refrain from dictating to the audience. I respect audience’s intelligence too much, so I’m not going to tell them what they should think.

I got this question a lot yesterday, ‘What should audiences think coming out of the theater?’ They’re gonna think what they’re gonna think. I don’t want to poison their mind or sway them one way or the other to tell them how to think. I think there are a lot of things in the film and how you rate the film depends on what your experiences are and what you experience in the exchange between yourself and the screen. But we did this for the people who aren’t here, not just the Buffalo Soldiers. While we were shooting this film, many times elderly Italians would come up to me and tell me they were children during the war. I met some who were survivors of the massacre at St. Anna, in particular one Italian woman came up to me and said she’s alive because of Buffalo Soldiers. During World War II she was an infant about to die and her mother took her to the base where the Buffalo Soldiers were and the black doctors there gave her a shot of penicillin or something and she recovered. And she started breaking down crying in front of me, saying she’s alive because of the Buffalo Soldiers.

So when you hear stuff like that - and it’s not like I was asking, these people just come up to me where we were shooting telling these stories - that it really drives home further that this is some real stuff, and we would shoot in locations where a lot of these actual events took place. We shot at St Anna di Stazzema, where on August 12, 1944 the Nazis, the 16th Division of the SS slaughtered 560 innocent Italian civilians, mostly elderly men and women and kids. We shot on the same exact location for two days and everyone on the cast and crew could feel the spirits and the souls of those 560 that were slaughtered. So for me that can’t help but inspire, even push you more, that you have a duty to try and get this right. You know, people died trying to portray the stuff we’re showing.

It may be a coincidence that the Miracle at St. Anna happens to be coming out now, but it’s not a coincidence that you’re reclaiming part of African American history with this story in the context of this story. Can this film in any way relate to what America may be on the verge of doing, which is changing its own history in a dramatic way?

LEE: I think it is. I think, again there’s a scene between Derek's [Luke] character, Stamps, and Michael's [Ealy] character, Bishop, where they discuss the same thing and Derek’s character just says, ‘I’m doing this for my children, my grandchildren.’ When you’re facing those odds, you have to have the long view. I think that the Buffalo Soldiers, they’re part of that evolution that brought about a Barak Obama. You have to include Dr. King, "LBJ signs the civil rights act," John F Kennedy, Malcolm; I mean you could just go on and on and on - Shirley Chisholm, Fannie Lou Hamer. But all of these things added up, even Jesse Jackson because people don’t know when he ran for president in 1988 some things were put in place that made Barack able to win. When for the Republicans - people don’t know this - the Republican Primary - When you win a state, you win all, the entire numbers. It’s not like that in Democratic. So that’s why when Obama is winning, even when he’s losing states to Hillary Clinton he was still getting votes because with the Democrats you don’t get the entire state, they go by the numbers. And now, because of Jesse’s - They changed that with Jesse in 1988, they’ll probably change it again [laughs].

But it is a hope. It is the same hope that our ancestors had being enslaved for 400 years, but somehow we knew through going to church, singing our Negro spirituals, praying to the almighty, that one day we’re going to see the promised land. That one day we’re going to get there. My grandmother lived to be 100 years old, her mother was born a slave, yet she got a college degree, finished Spellman College and she put me through Morehouse at NYU. But she would never have thought there was a chance to have a person of African decent to be on the cusp of being the President of the United States. So I think this is an indication of the seismic move this country has made.

There are many young Americans who do not have the views that their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents have had and I think people want to demean hip-hop. I have to say that’s one good thing on hip-hop - thee young white kids who buy 80% of the music anyway. That has changed the whole perception and I think it’s going to be these young white Americans who are not being polled. All of these polls coming out, I don’t think they’re included, the young white kids who could be voting for the first time. And I think they’re going to be the large group, they’re going to put Obama over the top. They’ve been a part of the large energy that’s come to the Obama campaign. So this film fits right in with that, the hope and possibility of this country achieving what the founding fathers set out to do, which I find hypocritical. Many of the founding fathers owned slaves. George Washington owned slaves, Thomas Jefferson [laughs]- they don’t teach you about Sally Hemings and it’s a funny thing. Real quickly - If you could show you’re a descendant of Thomas Jefferson, you get to go to the University of Virginia free. But they did that before DNA [laughs]. Now with DNA there might be another black school in Virginia besides Hampton Institute, because Thomas Jefferson was sneaking into the slave quarters and Sally Hemings wasn’t the only one.

This is a movie about different cultures, different countries and different languages coming together, and it was made in a similar way. How was it for the Americans to work with the Italians in a different country?

LEE: One of my concerns early on was the language barrier. I do not speak Italian, except "Vie, vie, vie," and "ataco ataco ataco," and "dua." It’s funny, Italian... My first A.D., who is not around, Italian crew members are asking me questions and I didn’t know what they were saying sometimes, so my answer always was "dua," which means two, always worked - "Dua, dua." - but I do not speak Italian. I do not speak German and language was not a barrier. And that was eye-opening to me because I think I’ve come to realize a lot of these divisions and obstacles and hurdles we put up, they’re self imposed, we do that. And so being in Italy, the crew being 95% Italian, most of the Germans spoke English though. But we all found a language to communicate and that was eye-opening. A lot of stuff we put up, the divisions, they’re self imposed.