| |
HOLLYWOOD — Movie industry insiders
and independent filmmakers agree, 2005 has
been a banner year for African Americans
in cinema.
Jamie Foxx and Morgan
Freeman both took home Oscars in an awards
ceremony featuring more minorities nominated
than ever before; three of the year’s
highest-grossing films — “Coach
Carter,” “Are We There Yet?”
and “Hitch” — all star
black men; while the “hottest”
movie at the Sundance Film Festival, a barometer
for what’s hip in Hollywood, was “Hustle
& Flow,” a film by John Singleton,
an African-American director from South
Los Angeles.
While few would call
this recent success a renaissance in African-American
film (“Hitch,” “Diary”
and “Are We There Yet?! ” are
not considered great cinematic achievements),
industry experts said it is certainly significant,
for it signals an evolution in an industry
that has long resisted attempts to diversify.
How long this will last,
and what impact it will have in terms of
getting more minorities in front of and
behind the camera is anyone’s guess.
“There has been
a huge climactic shift,” said veteran
director Mike Schultz, whose films include
“Car Wash,” “Krush Groove,”
Berry Gordy’s “The Last Dragon”
and most recently, “Woman, Thou Art
Loosed.” “When I came on the
scene, I think there was only Gordon Parks,
Melvin Van Peebles, who had been ostracized
by Hollywood, and Sidney Poitier was doing
his ‘Uptown Saturday Night’
thing and that was it.
“Today there are
all kinds of movies coming out with very
talented young directors of color. I see
a critical mass of trained black professionals
in every aspect of the business, which I
think will translate into more quality stories
be! ing told.”
“Blacks are getting
offered more mainstream roles now and the
Academy [of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences]
and critics are recognizing what these actors
can do outside of ‘Soul Plane’
or ‘Booty Call,’” said
Laurence Washington, co-publisher of Blackflix.com.
“Soul Plane” and “Booty
Call” were films heavily criticized
in the black community for portraying African
Americans as buffoons or sex-crazed fools,
with director Spike Lee and the Rev. Jesse
Jackson speaking out against them.
Washington is skeptical
of course, never willing to trust the motives
of major studios. “Today blacks are
the flavor of the month,” he said.
“Tomorrow, who knows? And in Hollywood,
the bottom line is the bottom line.”
Because Hollywood is
all about “the green,” meaning
money, producer Reuben Cannon, who was behind
“Diary of a Mad Black Woman,”
which debuted at number one, stunning industry
experts, said he would like to see a movement
towards more collaboration betwee! n black
filmmakers and black producers, not with
major studios, who Cannon feels exploit
minority audiences desperately craving quality
entertainment. If studios will not hire
minorities in positions of power, it makes
sense for blacks to support themselves,
Cannon said.
“Real progress
will happen only when we finally combine
our creative talents with our financial
resources,” he said. “I want
to see a movement toward black independent
films because that is the only way to keep
the integrity of the art intact. If we do
business the traditional way, through major
studios, we are only going to get frustrated
or disapprove of the finished product because
there are no black executives monitoring
the process. We will not see a change until
we become the change. We can’t wait
for studios to come to us.”
To finance “Hustle
& Flow,” Singleton spent $3.5
million of his own money. Now studios are
offering him four times that amount to distribute
the film, he said.
“W! hat you have
are black people taking charge,” Singleton
said from the set of his new film “Four
Brothers.” “You have Tyler Perry
[creator of ‘Diary’] financing
that himself and Ice Cube produced [‘Are
We There Yet?’] you know, so it is
a really good time to be making films independently.
African Americans are really popular in
entertainment right now.”
Or are they?
Some have questioned
the importance of box office figures, considering
the release dates for “Diary,”
“Hitch,” “Are We There
Yet?” and “Coach Carter,”
all fell in or around Black History Month,
which is considered to be one of the slowest
periods of the year for films, and a perfect
time to release films appealing to black
audiences. That may have contributed to
the high box-office returns, some said.
“You are not going
to put these movies up against your typical
Hollywood blockbusters and that is why you
are seeing them all released right now,”
said Ralph Scott, program direc! tor for
the Black Hollywood Education and Resource
Center in Los Angeles, who is very critical
of the lack of minorities greenlighting
films, which he said creates movies based
on offensive stereotypes. “Once it
hits May or June, you won’t see these
types of films except for maybe an F. Gary
Gray film.”
Gray directed “Be
Cool,” “The Italian Job,”
as well as “Friday,” and like
Antoine Fuqua, another black director who
made “Training Day,” “Tears
of the Sun,” and “King Aurthur,”
Gray is considered a filmmaker with that
all-important “crossover appeal.”
“I think you have
seen the success of these films because
they are not niche films or black films
or urban films, they are good movies with
crossover appeal,” said Paul Dergarabedian,
president of box office tracking firm Exhibitor
Relations.
“With the right
actor, these films are not considered black
films, but just good entertaining films
that people of all ethnic backgrounds want
to see,” said! Gitesh Pandya, editor
of BoxOfficeGuru.com. “Movies like
‘Ray,’ ‘Diary,’
and ‘Barbershop,’ where the
majority of the cast is black, are showing
Hollywood that there is a big appetite for
films like these and with the right cast
and story, crossover sales to their moviegoers
can lead to very strong profits. The color
Hollywood really loves is green and if a
type of film can bring home the bacon, the
industry will take notice.”
Scott warns to be weary
of the hype. Major studios will capitalize
on it the best way they know how, and that
is producing films that lack honest portrayals
and poignant content.
“Whites
are comfortable as long as blacks are doing
the things that are stereotypical, shooting
each other, degrading our women, not being
a father to our children,” Scott said.
“But once we are loving and caring
human beings, it doesn’t fit and doesn’t
seem right. Of course Denzel [Washington]
is going to win an Oscar for playing a bad
guy [in ‘Training Day’] and
Halle! Berry for a hoochie momma [in ‘Monster’s
Ball.’] Until the mindset that creates
that outcome changes, I think we are just
seeing another peak before a deep valley
in black films. Hollywood is going to end
up treating [this recent success] as a trend
and it will not be ongoing. I assure you.
These will be treated like flukes.”
|
|
 |
