Also that it must be funny, yet serious…. Not only was this his first chance to prove himself as a writer-director, but the film came saddled with an unrealistic critical expectation unique to black cinema: that it must speak for the entire black experience. It’s hard to fathom the unfair responsibility that might’ve been on Singleton’s shoulders when undertaking such a project. It’s rough around the edges but filled with that youthful, powerful energy (Singleton was 23 at the time), desperate to include everything they’ve been saving in case this is the only chance they’ll get to speak their truth to the world. One can sense this was Singleton’s debut, in the way one can tell you’re hearing a band’s first album. Films such as Charles Burnett’s influential drama Killer of Sheep (1978) looked at these areas with stunning insight, but where Burnett’s film was an indie project made for just $10,000, Boyz N the Hood was produced by Columbia Pictures, who gave director John Singleton $6.5M to realise his story. Predominantly black neighbourhoods such as Inglewood (where the film’s set and shot), which comprise much of South Central Los Angeles had rarely captured by major studio producers. Released in 1991, Boyz N the Hood blasted a searchlight into that grey area. Hagiographies ranged from musicals to noirs, charting maps made up of glamorous Hollywood streets and darkly beautiful back alleys.īut if this cinematic map was vivid in its downtown jungle or its backlot mazes, it surely had some dramatic grey areas-sections with question marks. Since L.A was decided upon as the ideal base for the film industry in the early-20th-century (owing to its year-round sunshine and non-unionised labourers, easily exploited by the powerful), filmmakers haven’t been shy to depict their homeland.
It’s an infatuation cinema’s only facilitated and emboldened.
Los Angeles, if the movies are to be believed, has long been in love with itself.
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