Spike Lee gets ready to do battle with Miracle at St Anna

The heroism of four African-American soldiers in      the Second World War inspired the director to expand his repertoire and make his first war movie. He talks to Will Lawrence The approach to Cinecittà Studios in the Italian capital is dominated by the looming edifice that houses the set for the TV series Rome, a hulking structure that plays host to hundreds of extras, who scrabble around the forum and the towering temples. Just to the left, lurking in its shadow, squats a smaller complex, which contains the studio soundstages. And here, away from the general hubbub, filmmaker Spike Lee is ushering a handful of actors on to a cramped stage. In the studio, it is September 1944 and four African-American infantrymen stoop under the low beams of a small Italian homestead.Their fingers hover above their triggers as they warily eye a group of Italian partisans who sit around the kitchen table, glowering at a German prisoner that sits opposite, gulping down hot soup. A child cowers in the corner; the air is thick with tension. One misplaced word or deed and slaughter will ensue. Lee's film may not be as elaborate as the sprawling epic that is Rome, but it promises even bloodier fare."This will be an R-rated film," offers Lee shortly after finishing the scene. "We have a total of four battles, and while we're not doing what Spielberg did on Private Ryan - this     isn't D-Day - there are some hard moments in this movie. There was a terrible massacre of civilians in the hills at St Anna and we went back there to create it. Shooting something like that, knowing     you were in the real place, that was spooky. Really, this is a fascinating story." The story is Miracle at St Anna, drawn from the novel of the same name by American author James McBride. Recounting the deeds of four "Buffalo Soldiers" from the US Army's Negro 92nd Division, who are trapped behind enemy lines in Tuscany, the book is like a Roman mosaic, piecing together different narratives to reveal the complex moral landscape of war. Lee is using native actors, speaking their native tongues, and in the scene we have just witnessed English, German and Italian rattled around the room. Of the American actors, the best known is Derek     Luke, who was excellent in Phillip Noyce's apartheid film Catch a Fire and also starred in Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs. SOURCE OF STORY:TELEGRAPH.CO.UK