John Singleton Speaks On White Directors Of Black Films

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-singleton-can-a-white-630127

 

This is similar to what statement in the book (Miss Anne in Harlem)in the other thread says throughout. Seems its the same issues 100 years later.

 

For something to be a "Black" movie, the controlling economic and/or content direction has to be controlled by a Black person......of a certain character mind you.

The character issue rarely becomes an issue though (even those like Tyler Perry should get a pass because much of his money is "Black") but someone like Lee Daniels is an exception. Precious and The Butler are not black movies. Those movies are financed to satiate white pathology.

 

Singleton forgot to mention director Vincent Minnelli(Liza's dad). He directed two all-black films. One of them was Green Pastures, in which God is an old black man who wears a black suit, tie and hat. It was a sort of modern twist on the Bible. And(maybe) Cabin In The Sky. It starred Doolie Wilson(whom would be highly acclaimed as Sam in Casablanca)Lena Horne or Dorothy Dandridge(as a temptress) and Rex Ingram(as Lucifer, Jr.).

 

The question that should be asked is can a BLACK director make a great black film? Or a great film period?

Of course there have been some great movies made by black directors but such a result is too uncommon. Yes, a large part of that comes down to opportunities or better yet the lack of them. Mainstream pictures are hard to come by for black directors. Still one has to make the most of his/hers opportunity when it comes one's way. And on that front many black directors have simply dropped the ball. And there is no one who is a better example of that then John Singleton who reached his peak with his first movie "Boyz n the Hood". Singleton has had numerous chances to make brilliant works of art and/or entertainment and has failed. Poetic Justice and Higher Learning? Pieces of shit with no strong narratives, very little in the way of inspired acting and no traces of sure-handed directing.

Rosewood? A complete disappointment. I know, I know. It makes the unofficial list of best black films of the past 30 years by many black filmgoers but that only goes to show how desperate we black folk are to find movies that we can connect with. Rosewood would have been a gamechanger under the expert hands of a true auteur, but Singleton is an average director at best.

Baby Boy wasn't all that bad, pretty good in some areas. But it still seemed the type of work that you'd expect from a director just out a film school, not a guy who at the time had been in the business for about ten years and had started off so strong that he had gotten an Oscar nomination for his initial film.

There was "Shaft" which was supposed to have become a revamped franchise but went nowhere in part because Singleton hired Samuel L Jackson (then clashed with him) and decided to not provide Shaft with the sexuality that his 70s counterpart (and his white counterparts throughout the history of film) was defined by.

The first sequel to Fast and the Furios was an embarrassment and had the misfortune of introducing Tyreese to the franchise. "Four Brothers" in the meantime was standard shoot 'em up fare, and like the Fast and Furious sequel it can't be considered a "black film" per se. The most frustrating part of "Four Brothers" is that Singleton employed two of the most talented actors in the industry who just happened to be black (Terrence Howard and Chiwetel Ejiofor) but he gave the larger black roles to dudes like Tyresse (again) and Andre 3000, er, I mean Andre Benjamin.

And there was that bomb he did with the native American guy from the Twilight series. Did that movie even make five bucks?

Singleton probably can't get the funding to do a serious black movie anymore because his rep is shot. No one thinks that highly of his abilities or potential these days. Hemay be frustrated by that. He probably wants another crack at doing another major story about the black expereince ala "Rosewood" but it isn't happening. So all he is left to do is write a somewhat thoughtful piece about white directors getting the opportunities to do black films that black directors aren't getting (which if you read between the lines means "he isn't getting"). There are some solid points he made in his writeup, but he doesn't help himself with throwing out bad examples like "The Help". The book wasn't some black-written novel that was cherished by the black community in the first place; it was a novel written by a white woman and frankly had a lot of her perspective and baggage. It was also loved mostly by white readers. So it was no shock that a white director was brought it to the big screen, especially considering that white drector was a childhood friend of the author and shared some of her mentality.

Let me tell you a black director that DOES make the best of his opportunity: Steve McQueen. That guy wanted to do a movie about slavery, wanted to do one that would not blink away from its horrors. He told himself it was very important to do the movie right and make it good; it was too important a subject for him to fail at delivering the goods. And from al indications he has delivered the goods and his movie will have to be reckoned with during awards season. McQueen is a Brit, a black man from the UK. He hasn't had the chance to do a real Hollywood film yet. Even 12 Years A Slave was independently financed. Despite some big stars in its cast it is was not produced by a major Hollywood studio. If McQueen can put forth such fine work what's the excuse from the African american directors who get their shot? When Spike Lee was making "Miracle at St Anna" I kepy hoping he would stop attacking Clint Eastwood and the Cohen Brothers when talking to the media and instread concentrate on making "Miracle at St Anna" the best possible film he could. That was the most important thing. Instead he made an average film which included some war scenes that looked as if they were directed by an amateur.

 

I remembered when Singleton's film Rosewood came out. I remembered reading about the incident in college. The story(or the alleged cause)was that a white woman said she was raped by a black man. So the white citizenry searched for the culprit. But, it became a an excuse to hunt for the innocent. There was no man like Ving Rhames in the fight. The KKK was there. The white merchant portrayed by Jon Voight did exist(his home was untouched because they knew he was a white man). The scene with the children being rescued by the engineers on the train was true. The survivors of Rosewood were mostly children and they had no idea of what was going on. Singleton did not allow any of them onto the set or even let them serve in an advisory capacity. Singleton simply wanted to tell a dramatic retelling that was action-packed. He didn't want to make a docu-drama. The survivors, even a white man who was there also one of the white families went to Tallahassee, FL to tell the state what really happened. People on both sides lost during that incident. I was disappointed in Singleton for that reason. But, I liked him for his work on Four Brothers. The theme of brotherhood resonated all thoughout that film. You have the brotherhood of family(I would love to have Fionula Flannigan as my adoptive mother),the brotherhood of union members, the brotherhood of thieves, and the brotherhood of police.

Like I had mentioned before about Spike Lee, anger is what drives him. It works for him. I do think he should focus on making his own movies than attacking other filmmakers, imho. Surely, he had to work with a major studio to make Miracle At St. Anna. Other than that, he always worked on his own. When he is not directing, he teaches filmmaking. When he made Malcolm X, he had a monumental task at hand and he was, indeed, tested. He made sure that his family was all on board for this journey(a white filmmaker was interested in making a film on Malcolm X, also. But actor Ossie Davis and other black actors and luminaries protested). Spike said that Malcolm X will be big in prisons since movies are shown there and that Muslim/Islamic inmates were guaranteed to watch it.

 

Singleton was the producer on Craig Brewer's "Hustle & Flow" and "black snake moan", so I doubt he has any reflexive animosity toward "white filmmakers" writ large...

there was a terrible regression in the aftermath of the early 90s wave of films from Lee, Singleton, Hudlin, et al.

Black directors still had horrible chances at directing "non-black" films until folks like Antoine Fuqua did King Arthur, Tim Story did Fantastic Four, etc.

For all of Hollywood's reputation as the liberal's shangri-la, the ranks of high-and-low-ranking studio executives, producers, casting directors, directors, screenwriters, publicists, agents and skilled laborers include any number of retrograde, reactionary, casual bigots, including some who rationalize that because they don't identify with cliche' southern KKK ogres, that they themselves cannot be 'racist'. Blacks are still frequently not taken culturally seriously when it comes to being given the nod to helm large-scale movie projects. Was anyone black ever in the running for the Nolan Batman films? How about Spider-Man? The irony is that for certain projects, you have white casting directors openly debating on who is "authentically black enough" for certain roles.

For films that revolve predominately around blacks, it is often assumed to be enough that black actors are involved, but any prominent production/post-production role for blacks is an afterthought, at best.

 

When the Hughes Brothers directed the film From Hell, it was quite a stretch and an achievement(Walt Disney had it first but didn't go through with it). The British were impressed with their knowledge of the Jack the Ripper murder case. And Allan and Albert were glad to be working in Europe because they were treated like men there(they didn't like to work in Hollywood). Those guys were very astute men who simply love film and have done their homework.