The Essentials: The Films of John Singleton [Podcast]

Pioneering filmmaker John Singleton passed away on April 28 and, at only 51, too soon.  Today, on Be Reel, we reflect primarily on three entries from Singleton’s career: the seminal “Boyz N The Hood” (1991), the endlessly meme-able “Poetic Justice” (1993) and the unsung achievement “Rosewood” (1997). We were thrilled to be joined by novelist, critic, and podcaster Tochi Onyebuchi (“Beasts Made of Nights“) to unpack Singleton’s significance as a modern mythmaker, a cinematic accumulator of black culture and a quintessential Los Angeles scribe. 

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Then, as this is an Essentials podcast, we scan around Singleton’s full filmography a bit, shouting on deep-cut favorites like “Higher Learning” (1995) before speculating on the industrial or personal shifts that led to Singleton’s mid-career studio fare, like “Shaft” (2000) “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003) and “Four Brothers” (2005).

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Singleton’s legacy is an important one: the first black filmmaker ever to garner a Best Director Oscar nomination, he paved the way for contemporary filmmakers of color to explore complex characters grappling with systems beyond their control. And rewatching his work reveals a trove of discussable patterns: he was a master of in-scene contrast, a bold caster of musicians in acting roles and a director whose visuals grew in power seemingly with each new film. 

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