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John Singleton speaks candidly about his
latest venture as a producer for
writer/director Franc. Reyes’
Illegal Tender, starring Rick Gonzalez and Wanda De Jesus. He
also discusses his views on today’s film
industry, and the need for people of
color to produce films that mean
something for their communities.
John continues to write and direct,
original works as well as assist in up
and coming filmmakers’ projects.
He is currently in pre-production for
the film
Tulia, starring Halle Berry and
Billy Bob Thornton. He is also
developing a series for Showtime called
Trade.
What attracted you to this project?
What attracted me the most was the fact
that I would be able to make a picture
different from what’s out right now.
I’m always about what’s new and what’s
next, not about what’s same old, same
old. And that’s what I was going
for with this picture, I wanted to make
a picture, that would be a genre picture
or gangster movie, but that would
resonate a lot with people on the level
of this kid who ended up in a single
parent family, who ended up going on a
journey because of his father’s sins.
You brought together two cultural
experiences, the Black and Latino
communities, is this really a new idea?
Not at all. We’ve lived side by
side for years, we have kids together.
Especially here in New York, it’s kind
of the same community when you really
think about it, that’s all you see.
Is it a goal of yours to speak more to
the Latin community?
Well the Latin community has always been
very supportive of my pictures.
That’s a big reason why I wanted to be a
part of this. Because with all of
my movies, people would come up to me
and say, “man I love your movies, I went
to see your movie three times, when are
you going to put some Latinos in your
movies?” So, this is my answer to it.
People have commented that you make
films with Shakespearean qualities,
would you say that’s true?
Sometimes. I haven’t read Shakespeare
since high school. It’s funny because I
was telling someone I want to go back
and re-read all the classics, not just
Shakespeare, but also Greek tragedy, and
all the basic tenets of storytelling,
because they help in my screen writing.
I have a lot of things in my writing
that center in on the classics like Baby
Boy, which had the Oedipus tragedy in
there and some other things.
Illegal Tender is more of an allegory of Homer’s Odysseus, the guy
goes on a journey for the love of his
mother. It doesn’t matter what I do,
high, low, sophisticated or ghetto
movie, everything goes back to the basic
tenets of western cultural storytelling
that I learned in high school, USC and
my film writing classes and stuff.
I just make it with flavor, people don’t
notice.
The emphasis on this film and in a lot
of your films is the love between
family, not necessarily between man and
woman. What is it about your
experience that makes this so important
to you?
I just feel like it’s something that if
people have it, they don’t necessarily
value it, and people that don’t have it
really value it. I mean they
really want that. Like in Four
Brothers, or Illegal Tender, family is
not necessarily the traditional nuclear
family. It’s a unit, and that unit
can be a number of permutations of
something. It’s all about love.
That needed to be solid because it’s all
about having the audience watch the
movie and make an emotional
identification with what needed to be
protected. Because when that
little boy is in jeopardy, everybody
feels for him.
It was interesting how Wilson Jr. was
questioning his mother’s love, or
ability to care for her family, but she
is the one to keep them together.
It’s funny because in every culture
whether Italian, Latino, Black or
whatever, these mothers have children at
a young age and then they go on with
their life, and the children become
young adults and they don’t want their
mother to have a life, I did that in
Baby Boy, mama gotta have a life
too. It’s tapping into what’s
going on in contemporary culture, but
you don’t see any of that in movies
anymore.
You’ve enjoyed a lot of success, has it
been difficult keeping up the momentum
in your career?
No, I’m doing better than I ever have,
I’m green lighting my own movies.
I green lit this movie, I green lit
Hustle & Flow.
You are your own production company now,
is everything going to flow through
that?
Yeah, pretty much
What’s next for you?
The next movie that I’m going to direct
is called
Tulia and stars Halle Berry and
Billy Bob Thornton. I’m writing
and directing it, we’re going to shoot
it this fall and it’ll be out next
summer. It’s about a famous case
in Texas in 1999 where they arrest 47
people, 43 were Black, they said that
they were all drug dealers. Now
this is a town of like 4000 people, they
didn’t find any drugs, no weapons, no
money, and what you find out is that the
state of Texas has a task force, and
they get more money from the federal
government depending on how many arrests
they make. The cattle industry is
dying down, the oil industry is dying
down, they don’t have a big agricultural
base, but they have a new industry;
building prisons, and they need people
to fill those prisons. Just like
they go through the slaughter house with
cows, they need more poor Black and
Latino people to put in these prisons so
they can get more federal subsidies, and
also so that the corporations will have
a whole pool of free labor. I’m
going to start in about two months.
I’m a truly American filmmaker, I’ve
been everywhere in the world, and I love
this country. I boldly go where no
man has gone. I went to Florida to
make
Rosewood, and I’m going to go to
Texas to make this movie.
Where do you get your ideas?
Life. Just talking to people, I
don’t read the headlines, just talking
to people and doing people’s real
stories.
Are you making films that inspire people
to change their outlook on things?
I’d feel honored that that happens. I’m
trying to make movies that are great
cinema. Much more than just being
a movie, where people are having
emotional identification whatever the
story is. On the surface it could
be a popcorn movie, but someone can come
out of it and think “wow”. It’s
important for me to continue to make
movies the way I want to make movies,
because the business is changing. You
can’t make movies in this business
unless you’re able to find money to back
your movies with investors and stuff.
The studios aren’t really making good
movies.
How do you keep it fresh?
Because I’m me! I always wanted to be a
filmmaker, but something clicked when I
was in film school, the only way that I
was really going to be able to do it is
if I could do it on my own terms.
If I couldn’t do it on my own terms, I
don’t think I’d be making movies.
I think I’d just give up, start a school
or something. I see so much BS in
my business, and I see people that are
making these films, and that’s what’s
being supported. What’s cool is
that I’m not some frustrated artist,
making movies that people are not going
to see. People are going to see my
movies. I’m making pictures, but I
hold myself to a higher regard in the
kind of things I want to do. I
feel like there are no Black filmmakers
making movies that speak to what’s going
on in America. There are all these
brothers in dresses. It’s no dig
on anybody, I like what Tyler Perry is
doing with the independent thing, and I
like
Daddy’s Little Girls that he just
did, but when you have
Medea,
Norbit, and
Big Momma’s House, and everyone’s calling them family films…Then you
have all these little Black boys going
to see these Black men in dresses, at a
certain point, no one is saying “you
know this is some BS, right?”.
Nobody’s telling them that men don’t
really dress in dresses, and that’s not
really good for you. So half of them
are trying to be more, men or thugs,
because they don’t have a daddy to tell
them you don’t have to treat a woman
without respect to be man. The
filmmakers are not speaking to what’s
going on, whether or not they’re Black,
Latino, Jewish, Asian or whatever.
Ethnic filmmakers are not speaking to
what’s going on in America right now,
and that’s what needs to happen. There
are no people that are making films that
make you think. The films coming
out of Sundance are all trying to be
these high concept movies, and they’re
not talking about regular folks.
Where are you finding these filmmakers
that you would want to support?
Other places, Craig Brewer came out of
Memphis, Franc. is from New York.
I’m going to find some White chick in
Texas that’s going to be the next great
thing, or some Black girl from Newark
that wants to make a movie. I
don’t think anyone in Hollywood but me
is going out and saying “I want to help
young filmmakers”. I do it by
hiring people out of film school, hiring
people that are passionate about getting
in the business. I’m probably going to
do a lot of that in Texas. It’s
like
Hustle & Flow, people like the story
of the movie, but they also like the
fact that we went out and made the movie
at all costs. They told us we
would never make the movie, and we did
and got nominated for Oscars and awards,
and won.
Do you think America as a whole is ready
to make a change and support new
filmmakers?
The more you can take your cell phone
and make a movie, or the more accessible
technology becomes, the more great films
will come out. You can make a film
with a small video camera, you can edit
it on your computer, and you can get
your friends to star in it. I
think that I can make a better movie
with a video camera than 90% of the
movies that are coming out right now.
They’re a lot of spectacle, but they’re
not anything that you actually feel.
What have you learned over the years? In
what ways have you grown in your career?
To be more confident. I used to have a
lot of battles with the early studio
pictures, feeling misunderstood.
People aren’t used to Black men telling
them they’re full of crap in business.
I’m an artist, but I’m doing business,
and I am who I am. If my
pictures are making money and I’m
successful, then I should be able to do
what I want to do. I’m not sitting
there trying to kowtow. I think at a
certain point I got a bad rub about
being difficult, but I was just very
passionate about what I wanted to do.
Things culminated for me 2 years ago
when I made
Hustle & Flow, and Four
Brothers and they came out in the
summer, and they both were successful.
It proved I’m doing the right thing, and
that what I do works, and at a time when
a lot of other things weren’t working.
I don’t feel like I have to bust
anyone’s chops anymore. I used to do it
when I was younger, out of insecurity
because I felt like, “I’m not going to
end up fake like you…” I don’t
have to carry that anymore, I don’t have
to act like that anymore. I am who
I am, and if I want to let people know
they’re full of crap, I can do that with
a look, instead of saying it.
Everyone out there is scared, about
appearances, perception, what to do with
themselves, and I go balls out, I do it!
And I feel great for it.
Are there any other business ventures
you would like to get into?
I’m very much interested in television.
I have a show I’m developing for
Showtime called
Trade, and I have some other things
I want to do for TV.
What about other film genres?
I want to do science fiction or a comic
book movie, I have to figure it out.
I want to do
Luke Cage; I have a number of
scripts for it. Maybe the
Black Panther. It’s hard because you
need a bigger budget, 75 to 100 million
dollars to do anything because you have
a lot of effects and a lot of animation.
Are you going to publish any books?
Every movie I do, I keep a journal, and
write about my various experiences.
I need to get more into essay writing.
A lot of American writers used to do a
lot of essays about different things,
but I don’t know about getting anything
published. Everything I seem to
think about or write is so ear-biting,
and I have to preface it by saying, if
you don’t agree with it, then fine…but I
never want to be encumbered by being
afraid of what people will think about
something I said. I live very
conservatively. I don’t get high
on the horse, because I don’t care. If
you’re not in that mode of being able to
say what you feel, it’s very
un-American. If you’re popping-off
just to pop off, then you really don’t
have a voice, you’re just trying to get
yourself in the paper.
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