Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 23, 1993 TAG: 9307230138
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
But something's not quite right. He is clearly not comfortable playing the hype game. It's not a matter of self-deprecation or modesty. Perhaps it's temperament, but there are some things he simply will not talk about, and he doesn't play evasive games.
This young (he's only 25) director was nominated for an Academy Award for his 1991 debut feature "Boyz 'N the Hood." Advance word had it that the new film wasn't as good, but that kind of Hollywood gossip has no credibility. In a summer as competitive as this one, with studio egos and millions of dollars on the line, even a modestly budgeted, personal film like his is going to take some lumps.
Still, though, when Singleton sat down in Washington with a group of writers, he came out swinging. A woman opened the conversation with the observation that "Poetic Justice" was a more sensitive film than the first one.
He snapped quickly, " `Boyz' was sensitive. Every film I do is sensitive. I wouldn't say that this is a more sensitive film. I'd say that maybe since the lead character is a young woman, you perceive it as being more sensitive. I'm a sensitive filmmaker."
His sensitivity then firmly established, the subject turned to the film itself, a road romance about Justice (Janet Jackson), a hair dresser who writes poetry, and Lucky (Tupac Shakur), a mailman - not your typical Hollywood leads.
Singleton explained that he meant for the film to be "more character-based than plot-based . . . and most films that come out of Hollywood are plot-based. `Boyz' was like that to a degree, but within the plot there are characters that you love. There are a lot of people who can identify with Justice's angst and her loneliness. That's what I was going after."
In the early drafts of his screenplay, though, "Justice was an Army wife who wrote poetry to her husband. She had three kids . . . and did the hair of the other Army wives," but faced with the problems of shooting overseas in Okinawa, he changed it. "I flipped the script and made her a hairdresser so I could get the movie done in L.A."
The verse was another problem. At first, Singleton said, "I tried to write the poetry myself, but I found that I couldn't write the poetry of a young black woman. Dr. Angelou is my favorite poet, so I decided to use her poetry." Maya Angelou's work receives prominent mention in the credits, and she plays a small but significant part on screen, too.
When the talk turned to other black filmmakers and their recent work, Singleton didn't name names, but his opinions weren't complimentary. " `Boyz' has had the distinction of being much like `Easy Rider' was in 1969, where it came out and was followed by all these cheap little motorcycle movies," he said.
"Now other films have tried to emulate the success of `Boyz 'N the Hood' and they've been more concerned with their success than with telling a different story and having some semblance of heart. They're written and produced by people who have heard or read about certain things, and they haven't seen and felt those things; you know what I'm saying.
"Whereas I have seen and felt what I do in my films, these people are just in it for the money, and their work shows it."
His critical judgment may be biased, but his historical comparison is dead-on accurate, and so is his larger point about the lack of "heart" in most movies. Not surprisingly then, when asked about the budget for "Poetic Justice," he clammed up again. Money, the lifeblood of Hollywood, is another of those subjects that Singleton wouldn't talk about.
Big-budget films, he said, "tend to have no heart. I don't set out to make films with straight messages. It just so happens that I'm a very opinionated person and some of my strong opinions end up becoming a part of the work I do."
All right, then, if he wouldn't talk about how much "Poetic Justice" cost, there was always the standard interview question about the upcoming film, and, of course, someone asked, "What is your next project?"
And John Singleton answered simply, "Something I'm going to do this fall" and refused to say anything more about it.
Some might call that attitude arrogance. Singleton would call it commitment to his art. And even if "Poetic Justice" isn't as successful at the box office as "Boyz" (and it's not likely to be), he's still young enough and talented enough and passionate enough to get away with that kind of talk.
by CNB