Director Lee offers tribute with Katrina documentary

Spike Lee was at the Venice Film Festival in Italy watching on television as Hurricane Katrina tore through New Orleans last August.

"I was just really mad and sad," he said. "I said, 'This is going to be a major moment in American history, and I want to do something about it.' "

The result is a four-hour documentary called "When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts" airing Aug. 21-22 on HBO. It shows how New Orleans survived Katrina against a backdrop of performances by Wynton Marsalis and Terence Blanchard at the Superdome, the French Quarter and the levees.