Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 20, 1995 TAG: 9501200050
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GENE SEYMOUR NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
He shakes his head. ``Uh-uh,'' he murmurs to his publicist. ``Not here. I'd rather take lunch upstairs in my room.''
One sees his point. These surroundings don't seem quite right for a discussion with the man who wrote and directed ``Boyz N the Hood,'' the 1991 film about growing up black, tough and troubled in South Central Los Angeles.
On this particular afternoon, Singleton, 27, seems too tired to discuss anything - and this is before the negative reviews for his third film, ``Higher Learning,'' which is playing in Roanoke at the Valley View Mall 6.
``Oh, you're back?'' a surprised Tyra Banks says upon opening the door of Singleton's suite. Banks is the stunning actress-model who's the romantic lead in ``Higher Learning'' as well as the romantic lead in the director's life.
``Yeah, we're gonna kick back in here instead,'' Singleton replies in his soft voice as he saunters toward the suite's living room. He flops on a couch and phones room service.
That done, he's ready to talk about college. Or, more accurately, America as one big college campus, which is the metaphorical drive wheel for ``Higher Learning.''
The film is set at mythical Columbus University, which Singleton says was loosely based on his own alma mater, the University of Southern California, from which he graduated in 1990. The story follows three freshmen through an especially arduous first semester.
Malik (Omar Epps) is a track star on athletic scholarship whose streetwise bravado gets roughed up by academic demands and, later, social turmoil. Kristen (Kristy Swanson) is a blonde from Orange County, Calif., who is radicalized after a frat-house date rape. Remy (Michael Rapaport) is a hick from Idaho who falls in with a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads because he can't hang with anyone else.
Circling these three characters is a cacophony of voices belonging to such characters as Taryn (Jennifer Connelly), a lesbian activist who becomes Kristen's closest confidant; Phipps (Laurence Fishburne), a tweedy, icy-cool political science professor; and Fudge (Ice Cube), a career student and Afrocentric separatist. Various jocks, coeds and campus cops are also tossed into the film's seething stewpot of attitude. The representation was even wider in Singleton's original conception. ``Fishburne's character, the professor, was written for a Jewish man,'' he says. ``But I couldn't find the right actor to do it.''
Singleton manipulates his characters through a tempestuous sequence of events that, as in ``Boyz N the Hood,'' culminates in violence. In-your-face attitudes about race, gender, justice and, of course, higher education itself, course through the narrative like a brushfire.
``Higher Learning's'' contentious tone has already disturbed some critics. Entertainment Weekly's Owen Gleiberman called the film ``a demagogic rabble-rouser,'' while acknowledging that its scattershot rancor makes it ``undeniably a movie of the moment.''
If certain sensibilities are burned by the film, Singleton believes he's done his job.
``I hope it sparks some controversy,'' he says. ``I wanted to get people going, stir things up. Because most American movies ... they don't say anything. Nothing.'' Which, as far as Singleton is concerned, reflects the whole country's state of mind.
``America's in denial. Especially white America. They're in denial about its past, its present, its future. Everything about its history is hypocritical. They call it a melting pot, but they vote for laws to keep people out. They say everyone has a right to a good education. But anybody who's different is considered wrong. If you're the wrong nationality, the wrong gender, the wrong anything, you don't fit in.''
Did Singleton, who grew up in South Central Los Angeles, feel like an outcast in his first years at USC? ``Yeah, very much so ...
``But after a while, I just carved my own niche out. A lot of [African-Americans] who go to predominantly white universities are called upon to perform this ... role of, you know, teaching white folks about why we act the way we do. My thing was, `Why don't you get out my face? I'm not here to teach you anything. I'm here to do my job, which is go to class, learn how to write screenplays and essays so I can get out and make movies.' ''
Singleton's success with ``Boyz,'' which came only a year after graduation, propelled him to the front rank of young black filmmakers. At 23, he became the youngest-ever Academy Award nominee for writing and directing and was given the chance to direct Janet Jackson in the starring role of a street poet in ``Poetic Justice.''
``Justice'' made less money than ``Boyz'' - and won less critical praise. Nevertheless, it was lucrative enough to maintain his stature as a beacon for aspiring filmmakers. At times, he is even expected to be a spokesman for his race.
If there's pressure attached to all this, Singleton doesn't show it in conversation.
``It's a trip, you know?'' he says, laughing. ``Black people can turn on a camera, and so there's a renaissance. Well, it's not about that. I'm still making my way through, finding stuff out. I'm not out to tell people what to think. I'm telling stories nobody but me can tell ...
``See, I want to put [audiences] in a trick bag. I felt with my first two films, `Boyz' and `Poetic Justice,' I was being ghettoized as a filmmaker. I could do that and make a good living at it. But I want to open more doors. I want to make bigger pictures that hit hard.''
Just what those films would be, Singleton doesn't want to say - though he'd like to try a historical epic someday. What he's after as a filmmaker, however, can be found in a scene from one of his favorite films, Akira Kurosawa's ``The Seven Samurai.''
``You know that scene where Toshiro Mifune runs into the burning house and brings out a baby whose mother's just died? And he's screaming, `This baby's me! I was an orphan!' I want to recreate that scene in some way.'' He laughs. ``If I can make a whole movie as great as that one scene, I'll be happy.''
by CNB