movie director; screenwriter
Personal Information
Born in 1968, in Los Angeles, CA; son of Danny Singleton (a mortgage broker) and Sheila Ward (a pharmaceutical company sales executive); married Akosua Busia, 1996; divorced, 1997; children: five.
Education: Received degree from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television, 1990.
Career
Signed on with the Creative Artists Agency during second year at USC; signed three-year contract with Columbia Pictures to develop and direct films, 1990; writer and director: Boyz N the Hood, 1991; Poetic Justice, 1993; Higher Learning, 1995; Shaft, 2000; Baby Boy, 2001; director: Rosewood, 1997; director of Michael Jackson's music video, "Remember the Time."
Life's Work
John Singleton's debut film, Boyz N the Hood, critically acclaimed for its realistic treatment of the black urban setting, has contributed greatly to a revival of black films by black filmmakers. Film critic Susan Stark, writing in the Detroit News, claimed that these filmmakers "are an extraordinary group of artists. They are energizing American movies on a scale not seen since World War II, when Hitler forced many of Europe's greats to seek refuge in Hollywood." Whereas the black exploitation films of the 1970s (Shaft, Super Fly) offered stereotyped, violent entertainment for blacks but were often directed or produced by whites, the black films of the late 1980s and the 1990s addressed critical social issues indigenous to the black community. With Baby Boy, Singleton's first film of the millennium and a companion piece to Boyz N the Hood, Singleton closed out the first ten years of his career with yet another socially-significant piece.
John Singleton was born in 1968, in south-central Los Angeles. Raised in the same type of neighborhood depicted in Boyz N the Hood, Singleton spent his childhood years shuttling between his unmarried parents. "My parents didn't have a lot of money," he told Time. "I used to steal little stuff, like candy, toys, and Players magazines, but I never got into anything too rough." Part of the reason he stayed clean was the attention his parents paid to him, and part of that attention, which ultimately influenced his career choice, was his father's taking him to see movies. By the time he was nine years old, Singleton decided he was going to make motion pictures. "He gorged on films by Orson Welles, Francois Truffaut, Steven Spielberg, Akira Kurosawa, John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola," Karen Grigsby Bates noted in the New York Times Magazine. Singleton learned from these masters, but he needed to express something that they could not. "I always wanted to do a real film about what it's like growing up Black," he told Ebony. "There are always stories about how Whites grow up, films like American Graffiti or Rebel Without a Cause."
Began Writing Screenplays
While in high school, Singleton learned "that the film business was controlled by screenplays. After I heard that, I knew I had to learn how to write, so I did," he told Time. This focus proved valuable. After graduating from high school in 1986, Singleton was accepted to the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television's prestigious Film Writing Program. During his four-year studies there, he won three writing awards.
These achievements in writing earned Singleton a contract with the powerful Creative Artists Agency during his sophomore year at USC, and in May of 1990, his agent sent the script for Boyz N the Hood to Columbia Pictures. The response was immediate: "I thought John's script had a distinctive voice and great insight," Frank Price, chairman of Columbia Pictures, said in an interview excerpted in the New York Times. "He's not just a good writer, but he has enormous self-confidence and assurance. In fact, the last time I'd met someone that young with so much self-assurance was Steven Spielberg." Columbia wanted to make the picture, but at first wanted someone else to direct it. Singleton believed only he could do it. "They asked me if I would consider anybody else directing it," he recalled to Interview's Steven Daly. "And I said, Hell, no, I'm not gonna let somebody from Idaho or Encino direct a movie about living in south-central Los Angeles. They can't come in here and cast it and go through the rewrites and know exactly what aesthetics are unique to this film."
Portrait of a Young Black American
Columbia finally agreed, giving Singleton a $7 million budget. The film, which had its first screening at the Cannes Film Festival in the spring of 1991, follows three characters at two different stages in their lives: first at the age of 10, then at age 17. At the beginning of the film, Tre Styles, the protagonist, is sent by his mother, Reva, to live with his father, Furious, in hopes that the unruly boy will learn to be a man. In his new neighborhood Tre meets two half-brothers who live across the street: Rickey and Doughboy. Together, these three characters grow up in an environment where, as David Denby described in New York magazine: "all day, jets heading for LAX come in low over the small tract houses; at night, police helicopters join in the din, training down their lights. The sun shines regularly, but the little boys play football with a corpse lying nearby, and a teenage girl tries to read through the rattling of gunfire."
What differentiates the direction of the three characters' lives is that Tre has a father who is present and strong and concerned. Furious's program for Tre, as Stark delineated it, is simple: "Look people straight in the eye, don't respect anyone who doesn't respect you, stay clean, work hard." His guidance ensures that Tre will resist the deadly temptations of the street and become responsible. Conversely, the two half-brothers lack attendant fathers and their lives are open to jeopardy. Rickey is a gifted athlete and his mother's favorite, but he must pass his SATs to win a scholarship. Doughboy, disliked by his mother because she hates his absent father, is a complex character "whose intelligence and street eloquence do battle with a penchant for self-destruction," Bates observed. He is reduced to selling drugs and spewing anger from his mother's front porch steps.
The quote "One out of every 21 black males will be murdered. Most will be shot by another black male" opens the film. True to this appalling statistic, only Tre emerges at the film's end, a survivor guided by his father's teachings, ready to enroll in college and leave the neighborhood. "In the end, Boyz N the Hood asks the all-important question of whether there is such a thing as changing one's fate," Maslin pointed out. "If there is--and Mr. Singleton holds out a powerful glimmer of hope in the story's closing moments--then for this film's young characters it hinges on the attitudes of their fathers."
Critical reaction was predominantly positive. Singleton was praised for his recreation on film of the milieu of the neighborhood, the geography of a place heretofore unexplored. Bates found it a "challenging film, a disconcertingly gritty peek into a facet of life to which virtually no white audiences have been privy--and that a fair number of black middle-class viewers will find alien as well." Denby praised the film's nuances, how Singleton was able to depict the "insane combustibility in ordinary encounters--the jostling among teenagers that ends with guns blazing. He gets the heat and sass of young women, the despair of the older ones. He presents a coherent picture of a tragic way of life."
But some critics were disenchanted with Singleton's treatment of his characters. For Time's Richard Corliss, the women in the film "are shown as doped-up, career-obsessed, or irrelevant to the man's work of raising a son in an American war zone." People's Ralph Novak went even further, stating that none of the characters were realistically outlined, and that only the actors kept Singleton's "too-symbolic characters from turning into cardboard." But this fault, according to Stark, was not a result of Singleton's inability as a writer or director, only a result of his inexperience and ambitiousness: "What he needs to do ... is cut back on the ideological burden of his scripts. Hood is overstuffed with ideas. All are worth exploring, but not in a single film."
Film Debut Marred by Violence
The most negative publicity, however, occurred when Boyz N the Hood opened to violence in and around theaters on July 12, 1991. Shootings and knifings left two dead and more than 30 injured in incidents at about 20 theaters from Los Angeles to Chicago and Detroit. In immediate response, 21 of the 829 theaters showing the film decided to drop it. Singleton labeled this response "artistic racism." He told Stevenson, "I didn't create the conditions under which people shoot each other. This happens because there's a whole generation of people who are disenfranchised." Singleton elucidated this idea in an interview with Newsweek's Andrew Murr: "It was the fact that a whole generation [of black men] doesn't respect themselves, which makes it easier for them to shoot each other. This is a generation of kids who don't have father figures. They're looking for their manhood, and they get a gun. The more of those people that get together, the higher the potential for violence." Denby concurred, citing the film's purpose in depicting the useless and unwarranted violence in the neighborhood: "What the gunshots mean is that a number of young men are so excited by the presence of images of gang warfare that they cannot see what the images or the context around them is actually supposed to mean."
No justifiable argument has been offered to show a causal relationship between the film and the violence that accompanied its opening. Indeed, the function of the film was not to propagate violence, but to offer a solution for its erasure. "If you make a film," Singleton told Time, "you have a responsibility to say something socially relevant." Stark believed that Singleton was successful in this endeavor, saying, "This is a film that makes a plea for conscientious parenting. This is a film that shows self-respect and hard work as the only hope for children. This is a film that concludes with a challenge, written in bold titles across the big screen: 'Increase the peace.'"
When all the smoke cleared, the movie grossed more than $100 million. On the heels of its financial and critical success, Boyz N the Hood also earned Singleton the distinction of being the youngest person ever nominated for a best director Oscar and the first African American to receive the Oscar nod for directing.
Follow-up Film a Disappointment
Singleton's sophomore project was aimed at the Girlz N the Hood. "I wanted to do something street, but something different," Singleton explained in Essence. "With Doughboy I dealt with the insecurities of Black men. So I thought, Why not do a movie about a young sister and how all the tribulations of the brothers affect her?" The 1993 release, Poetic Justice, starred Janet Jackson as Justice, a young girl who works in a beauty salon and writes poetry--award-winning writer Maya Angelou supplied the poetry for the film. The film also featured rapper Tupac Shakur as the kind mailman who has fallen for Justice.
The film opened to critical complaints of a weak story that was loosely tied together. Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic remarked that the film is "a steady boil of pointless bickering between run-of-the-mill young people." With Boyz being such a huge success, the $30 million earned by Poetic Justice seemed like a drop in the bucket even with all its star power.
In 1997 Higher Learning had a better showing at the box office. Much like its predecessors, Higher Learning was full of thought-provoking commentary. The film covered racial and sexual tensions, as well as self-defeating attitudes in all races on a predominantly-white campus. The characters, Richard Schickel observed in Time, "are points on a rigidly conceived political spectrum." The film's all-star cast included rap stars Ice Cube and Busta Rhymes, and actors Omar Epps, and Michael Rapaport. The film also featured model Tyra Banks, whom Singleton had been dating since 1993.
His next release, 1997's Rosewood, told the story of the progressive black town of Rosewood, Florida. In 1923 Rosewood fell to a lynch mob of poor white residents from the nearby town of Sumner. When a white Sumner resident who had been assaulted by her lover blames the incident on a black man, she literally destroys the town and its people with her lies. "Rosewood seemed like a ripe subject to paint a very provocative portrait of the America people rarely want to talk about," Singleton told Jet. "Ours is a morbid history; most try to evade it. Black people don't want to remember being victims of lynching, rape, the separation of families, living under Jim Crow and all the other horrors those things entailed. And White folk don't want to remember being the perpetrators of that kind of persecution." The film starred Don Cheadle, Elise Neal, Jon Voight, Ester Rolle, and Ving Rhames.
Singleton was extremely proud of this film. He told Jet that Rosewood was "one of the most worthwhile ventures I have ever embarked on." And Singleton had good reason to be proud. He once again gained critical acclaim for his concise depictions of human emotions in film.
It was during the filming of Rosewood that Singleton met and wed actress Akosua Busia, best remembered for her role as Netty in The Color Purple. The marriage was short-lived with the couple divorcing in 1997. However, the marriage did result in the birth of a daughter, Hadar, born in April of 1997.
In 1999 Singleton faced battery charges after a January altercation with the mother of one of his children--Singleton has fathered five children with four women. Singleton's ex-girlfriend had come to Singleton's home to pick up their daughter when an argument ensued. According to one witness, a female friend of Singleton's former girlfriend who had come along that day, Singleton repeatedly struck his ex-girlfriend with his fist. When the case went to court several months later, Singleton pleaded no contest and was ordered to create a short film about domestic violence.
Remade Classic Blaxpoitation Film
For his fifth film, Singleton turned to classic black cinema with a remake of Shaft (2000). The film starred Samuel L. Jackson, Christian Bale, and Vanessa Williams. With any remake, there is the danger that it will not hold up in comparison to the original. Some critics felt that Singleton's Shaft, was indeed inferior. Time's Richard Schickel felt that Shaft lacked all the necessary attitude of the original and that Singleton had made "yet another urban action piece, well enough made but not essentially different from a hundred other movies like it." Other critics, however, felt that Singleton had expertly reinvented Shaft. Robert Koehler of Variety called the film "the kind of smart, entertaining product that studios yearn for in the summer season." Koehler added, "This is exemplary action screenwriting that keeps characters at the forefront, so that the final confrontations and shocker twist carry the kind of emotional pull that used to be a Hollywood trademark."
In 2001, ten years after the release of his first film, Singleton returned to the hood with Baby Boy. The film was considered a companion piece to Boyz N the Hood. The theme of Baby Boy, as described by Stephen Schaefer of The Boston Herald, is "African-American men, who call homes 'cribs,' their buddies 'boys,' and their women 'momma,' resist growing up and taking adult responsibility. They want to remain baby boys." Singleton told The Boston Herald, "The great thing about this movie is it offers a window, almost a mirror, and if they watch it and change their lives, they can change it."
Singleton recruited R&B star Tyrese for the lead role. The film was Tyrese's acting debut, but Singleton never hesitated in his choice. "Tyrese was a movie star who hadn't done a movie yet," Singleton explained in The Boston Herald. Tyrese played Jody, a jobless 20-year-old who lives with his mother. Jody's two girlfriends have each borne him a child. Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch commented, "Although the women are property owners and breadwinners, the males are lazy thugs." Reviews for the film were mixed, with some critics offering effusive praise for the film's mixture of comedic and dramatic elements, and others, such as the Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt, claiming that Singleton failed "to dramatize his thematic concerns, which forces him to take refuge in speeches and gangsta violence."
The year 2001 commenced the second decade in Singleton's career, and he planned to make the second decade as thought-provoking as the first. "I want to keep challenging Black people," he told Ebony . "I want people to have a sense of what we are as a people. I want to keep making people think. It's my responsibility."
Awards
Three writing awards from the University of Southern California; First African American and Youngest Director to be nominated for Best Director Oscar, 1992.
Works
Selected filmography
- Boyz N the Hood, Columbia, 1991.
- Poetic Justice, Columbia, 1993.
- Higher Learning, Columbia, 1995.
- Rosewood, Warner Brothers, 1997.
- Shaft, Paramount, 2000.
- Baby Boy, Columbia, 2001.
Further Reading
Periodicals
- Boston Herald, June 25, 2001; June 27, 2001.
- Detroit Free Press, July 12, 1991.
- Detroit News, July 12, 1991; July 20, 1991.
- Ebony, November 1991.
- Elle, June 1991.
- Essence, November 1991.
- Hollywood Reporter, June 27, 2001; August 1993.
- Interview, July 1991.
- Jet, March 24, 1997; July 12, 1999.
- New Republic, August 23, 1993.
- Newsweek, July 15, 1991; July 29, 1991.
- New York, July 22, 1991; July 29, 1991.
- New York Times, July 12, 1991; July 14, 1991; August 2, 1991.
- New York Times Magazine, July 14, 1991.
- People, July 22, 1991.
- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, June 27, 2001.
- Time, June 17, 1991; January 23, 1995; June 26, 2000.
- Variety, June 12, 2000.
— Rob Nagel, Leslie Rochelle, and Jennifer M. York
