Spike Lee revisits flood-ravaged New Orleans

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — Spike Lee's grandmother meant everything to him.

"My grandmother lived to be 100 years old. Her grandmother was a slave, yet she was a college graduate," he said. And she saved her Social Security checks to put him through college and graduate school, even financing his 1986 movie "She's Gotta Have It."

"And in her later years when I would speak to her (by phone), I would say, 'Mama, I'll speak to you tomorrow night,' Lee said. "And she'd say, 'Spikey, if God is willing and da creek don't rise.' "

Which is where he got the title for his four-hour documentary, which airs Monday and Tuesday at 10 p.m. on HBO. It's a follow-up to his award-winning "When the Levees Broke."

Five years after Katrina, "Willing" starts on a high note. The New Orleans Saints win their first Super Bowl, and the city is delirious with joy.

And Lee said he originally figured that that would be how his documentary would end.

But there's a whole lot of rebuilding left to do in New Orleans. And disaster strikes again when the BP oil spill floods the Gulf of Mexico and strikes another blow against the city and the region.

So much for a happy ending.

But there's plenty more struggle in the two-part documentary. We flash back to the horrifying images of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath. We revisit the failures that led to the disaster; we see new failures that have stalled the rebuilding.

There's crime. Murder runs rampant. The education system is a mess. Affordable housing is hard to come by.

Lee tells the stories of both regular folks and politicians then and now. The most surprising thing in the four hours is, perhaps, the participation of former FEMA director Michael Brown. He, of course, blames former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.

(Brown also points out — accurately — that he winced when former President George W. Bush said, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job.")

Lee pretty much blames everyone. He said the "connective tissue" between "When the Levees Broke" and "If God Is Willing and the Creek Don't Rise" is "greed."

"It was a greed of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, who cut corners in the construction of the levee system (that) led to the levees toppling and, consequently, New Orleans being 80 percent under water," he said. "It was greed again that reared its ugly head with BP, who did not want to buy this blowout protector … which only cost half a million dollars."