The year is 1990, it’s 12:15 a.m. and location scout Kojo Lewis has just returned from a 16-hour shift on set. Suddenly, he receives a call. A USC film student is on the line, flustered with excitement. He tells Lewis that his script was just greenlit and needs him to read it right now. Lewis agrees, drives to his hotel, and reads the entire feature-length script. When he finishes, Lewis looks up and says, “You don’t even know what this is going to be for you.”
That script was John Singleton’s “Boyz N the Hood,” an instant cultural sensation and a golden ticket to Hollywood for the young director, launching a fifty-year legacy as an esteemed filmmaker and cultural educator.
USC students and LA residents attended a special screening of “Boyz N the Hood,” on Friday, Sept. 9, heralding a series of events celebrating the life of USC alum and award-winning director, John Singleton.
Visions and Voices, a USC Arts and Humanities initiative, hosted the screening, which was followed by a panel that featured Singleton’s mother, Sheila Ward-Johnson, alongside Hollywood executive Frank Price and location scout Kojo Lewis.
Alex Ago, the director of programming and special projects for the School of Cinematic Arts, heads the Singleton retrospective, “John Singleton: A Celebration,” which will continue throughout the academic school year.
“We thought that the first conversation and the first screening should reflect the transition journey of [Singleton] before he came to USC, what his time here was like, and how that translated into his debut feature,” Ago said in a private interview with Annenberg Media. “I find that those kinds of conversations can be really interesting and inspiring to young filmmakers because they’re here to learn about not just the art of cinema, but what it takes to get something made...It’s an important film in the history of cinema, it’s a key film in his career, but it’s also one of the more relatable stories in terms of students taking a chance on telling a story like this in their own careers.”
“Boyz N the Hood” was a leap of faith for both Singleton and Frank Price, former chairman of Columbia Pictures, who greenlit the project. The film was a testament to Singleton’s fearlessness as he attempted to present a difficult and deeply personal topic to a broad audience.
The story follows young Tre Styles, played by Cuba Gooding Jr., and his friends as they navigate adolescence in Crenshaw, Los Angeles. Singleton examines the damaging effects of street violence in a community on a personal level.
When Singleton pitched the script to Columbia Pictures, they were skeptical. Singleton was a 21-year-old director straight out of college without any major projects under his belt. Price’s partners were also concerned that the material was not relatable to a wide range of viewers, but Price challenged the notion that people had to live through the same experience to relate to a story.
“I saw ‘Bicycle Thief’ when I was fairly young, and I wasn’t Italian. I hadn’t lived in Rome. But I was able to identify with all these people who are different from me,” Price said at the event. “So I thought, why couldn’t broad audiences in the United States identify with this? This is a wonderful view into the tragedy of that community.”
Price was right to give it a chance. The film was a smashing success, grossing $56 million at the box office. The cultural sensation is enshrined at the Library of Congress, which marks its place as a classic of American cinema.
Singleton is renowned for films illustrating the Black experience, and “Boyz N the Hood” is no exception to his culturally illuminating catalog. SCA Dean Elizabeth Daley opened the event with an ode to Singleton’s vision.
“John’s stories were personal,” Daley said. “They were certainly about the struggle of generations of Black Americans…many of his films were a love letter to Los Angeles, specifically South Los Angeles. The film that we are about to see tonight is all of those things. I think ‘Boyz N the Hood’ is now deservedly considered a classic of American cinema.”
The film received critical acclaim and several Oscar nominations, including best original screenplay. At 23, Singleton was the first Black filmmaker and youngest person to receive a nomination for best director.
Event Moderator Robert Townsend praised the film as a testament to the possibilities as a young filmmaker. Panelists offered words of encouragement to USC film students attending the event.
“What I say to a lot of my students is that there is nothing to stop you,” Townsend said. “You could shoot a film with an iPhone – it’s all about writing and having a circle of people around you that will tell you the truth. Steel sharpens steel.”
Townsend also said that the only thing stopping this generation of filmmakers is fear. He attributed Singleton’s success to being true to his voice and staying fixed on his goals.
Kevin Maxwell, USC grad student and recipient of the John Singleton Scholarship for the Arts, respected the raw reality that the film portrayed.
“As a kid, when I saw ‘Boyz N the Hood,’ it was the only film that I think I ever saw in my life that depicted a reality that I was familiar with, that I knew existed out there,” Maxwell said.
“You see all these other films with these characters of gang members and stuff like that. They don’t feel like that, they don’t talk like that. There’s a pace and a rhythm we talk with. We don’t talk the way that other people put us out there. This film had all that. It was raw and real. That’s why I call it a documentary.”
“Boyz N the Hood” was the first of its kind in many ways, but especially in its portrayal of South Central neighborhoods. While previous directors painted South Central LA as a spectacle for street violence, Maxwell said Singleton offered a realistic perspective. The film invites viewers into the lives and relationships of the characters, where the narrative relies on intimacy and people as much as it does on the action.
“Being African American, he gave [the film] a nuanced perspective,” Maxwell said. “Not only did he document the violence that mainstream America usually hears about, but he showed a father-son relationship. He showed Black love. He showed intelligence. He showed people making decisions. That’s real.”
Visions and Voices had planned to host a retrospective event since Singleton passed in 2019, but the pandemic prevented Ago and his team from hosting the event in a way that would best honor Singleton’s legacy until this year.
“We decided to wait until the time was right when we could bring a lot of people together: his family, his colleagues who worked on his films, and the students,” Ago said. “We could extend it throughout the entire academic year and make each individual screening its own special event.”
Ago worked with Singleton’s mom to develop the retrospective, which includes screenings of his works in chronological order, followed by more conversations with those involved with the projects. The celebration will continue on September 21, with a screening of “Poetic Justice,” followed by a Q&A with actress Tyra Ferrell, producer Steve Nicolaides and more to be announced.
As the celebration continues, Ago aims to get people excited for and involved in the project. He says directors, actors and possibly a member of the Jackson family will headline future panels as the journey continues. All events will remain free for the public and USC students to attend.
According to Ago, the initiative of Visions and Voices is to provide an intimate experience that transcends the entertainment aspect of the screening.
“Even if you are at home, and you have access to finding certain films, what you miss in that is the collective experience: the joy, the collective theatrical experience, the ability to talk about something immediately with your peers, or with the people who actually made the film,” Ago said. “That’s important.”
Ago hopes that the retrospective will help audiences develop a better understanding of Singleton’s life and foster a greater appreciation for his work through his journey as a filmmaker.
“I think that John’s career is a constant reinvention of who he is as a filmmaker as he works through different genres,” Ago said. “The films all share similarities, but he’s not remaking the same film every time. And I think that that’s a great credit to his ambition and his perseverance.”