Filmmaker Spike Lee, who premiered his new film "Highest 2 Lowest" at the Cannes Film Festival, believes his friend and frequent collaborator Denzel Washington deserved an Oscar for his role in "Malcolm X".
Lee's "Highest 2 Lowest" is a modern take on Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low" and stars Washington as a music executive and has generated a lot of buzz in the festival where it screened out of competition.
Directed by Lee, "Malcolm X" released in 1992 and featured Washington as African-American activist Malcolm X, an influential civil rights activist who was assassinated at the age of 39 in 1965.
Lee said the actor deserved an Academy Award for his performance in 1993 than Al Pacino, who won the Best Actor award for his role in the film "Scent of a Woman".
"'Malcolm X', what he did with that film was amazing. And no disrespect to my brother Al Pacino, I love him. But Denzel, in my opinion, should have won," Lee said at the Cannes press conference.
Washington won the Best Actor Oscar for his role in "Training Day".
The 68-year-old filmmaker, however, said he doesn't measure success in awards.
"With these awards, it’s like basketball, where the ref blows a call and you have to make a call. So the make a call I think was ‘Training Day,’ which he won an Oscar for. But we don’t do our work for awards, which are nice, but it’s the work that is going to stand above all awards," he said.
"Highest 2 Lowest" marks the fifth collaboration between Lee and Washington. They have previously collaborated on "Mo' Better Blues" (1990), "Malcom X", "He Got Game" (1998) and "Inside Man" (2006).
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