When Ernest Dickerson, a cinematographer, and Spike Lee, a director and writer, came to shoot their film "She's Gotta Have It" in 1986, they were inspired by the visual style of "Rumble Fish".

"She's Gotta Have It" is the story of Nola and her three boyfriends, each of whom are pressuring her to commit to them. Told in a documentary style, with all actors speaking to camera, Spike Lee stars as Mars Blackmon, an irreverant bike courier who likes to try and impress Nola with tall stories of people he's met and conversations he's had with them.

Ernest Dickerson says that the films that he and Spike loved to watch, also helped to educate them as they learned about different film techniques.

"When we were preparing "She's Gotta Have It", we looked at Francis Ford Coppola's "Rumble Fish". I think "Rumble Fish" was playing on HBO at the time and we were talking about the film and I'd forgotten who came up with the idea but it was from looking at "Rumble Fish" that we decided to shoot it in black and white. Actually it was great because we wanted the center section - with the dance sequence - the colour section - to feel like old Technicolour because Spike loved old Technicolour musicals. And it worked out, because when you see a black and white film, and your eyes get used to seeing only blacks and grays, then Boom! You put colour in the middle of that and it's going to explode right off the screen....

We were always experimenting, trying to find a different way of getting a feeling across. It was the willingness to just try stuff out. A lot of that comes from, I guess, just having seen a lot of movies and seeing what some filmmakers were able to do with the visual elements.... our dialogue was always "Yo man, what can we do to make things more interesting?" *

Spike Lee credits Ernest Dickerson with the distinctive use of the camera, helping to tell the story within Lee's films, which Dickerson says comes from his early exposure to photography .

This is evident in the striking screencaps from the film, which are thumbnailed below.