This is what The Criterion Collection does best: They take a venerated (or sometimes less-known) director, assemble their work in a gorgeously conceived box set, and use archival material, interviews, documentaries, and essays to put that person’s celebrated work in a detailed context. It’s mindboggling, therefore, that it took so long for John Singleton to receive that signature treatment. Spike Lee, Singleton’s contemporary, for instance, has four films in the collection (“Bamboozled,” “David Byrne’s American Utopia,” “Do The Right Thing,” and “Malcolm X”). The Hughes Brothers have “Menace II Society.” These releases, of course, always come down to rights, and I’m sure it must’ve been a tall order to gather Singleton’s historic Hood trilogy of “Boyz n the Hood,” “Poetic Justice,” and “Baby Boy” into a single release. Well, the wait was worth it.
This pristine box set is an imperative tribute to one of cinema’s great, paradigm-shifting directors. Its memorializing begins with the resonant cover designed by visual artist Ngabo “El’Cesart” Desire Cesar, whose past work has been praised by Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Anderson Paak, and more. The vivid cover depicts a South Central Los Angeles street, set against an orange-smeared sky whose hue could describe either a dawning or a sunset. In the foreground is a cinderblock wall with two spray-painted sketches of Singleton: one showing his visage with his trademark South Central Cinema baseball cap, while the other is a medium view of him in a t-shirt from the waist up.
All of the films are 4K restorations on 4K UHD discs presented in Dolby Vision HDR, with each film featuring its own special features: auditions, deleted scenes, documentaries, featurettes, and more. There’s also a conversation between Regina King and Ryan Coogler and interviews with Taraji P. Henson and Tyrese Gibson. Binding these components together is an essay by critic Julian Kimble.
Taken together, the films in the comprehensive box set attempt to explain Singleton’s creative ethos. One documentary, “How to Make a John Singleton Film,” talks to casting director Kimberly Hardin, producer Peter Hall, and publicist Cassandra Butcher about what made the director so unique. They share his love of hip-hop and R&B artists, like Tupac, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, and Tyrese Gibson—those who’d go on to star in his films—his desire to shoot locally in South Central and to employ Black talent, and his persistent pursuit of realism. We learn that for one “Boyz n the Hood” scene, the shooting on Crenshaw, Singleton fired a real gun by surprise to elicit a natural reaction from his actors. He would also screen movies he’d hoped would inform his newest movies, like Héctor Babenco’s Brazilian masterpiece “Pixote” for “Boyz n the Hood.”
When Singleton became the youngest Best Director nominee in history for “Boyz,” thereby altering what stories could be told, he didn’t then grasp for mainstream success. He continued telling his own stories. In a conversation between Regina King and Ryan Coogler in the box set, Coogler, who first met Singleton at a Los Angeles gym, marvels at the director’s desire to represent the heart and movements of Black life with staunch sincerity. King, similarly, recalls how supportive Singleton was in inspiring her to become a director.
Through copious deleted scenes, we also get a sense of how Singleton stitched his films together. A subplot that’s nearly totally erased from “Poetic Justice,” involving Justice’s salon co-worker taking their own road trip, shows up in its entirety here. More than prompting the viewer to lament their exclusion, their prominence here should inspire many to consider which decisions require knowing the how and the why of a scene and an arc in relation to the larger picture. Each deleted scene, therefore, is deeply revealing of this artist’s process and rewarding for any aspiring director to witness.
What’s most surprising about the Hood Trilogy is the inclusion of “Baby Boy.” The film, of course, was always part of Singleton’s cohesive vision of a cinematic South Central. But unlike “Boyz n the Hood” and “Poetic Justice,” its popularity and importance remain populist. That is, not many critics would include it on a ‘best of’ list or accord it the same rigor as its predecessors. It doesn’t have the all-caps importance of “Boyz” or the star power of Tupac and Janet Jackson (though, to be clear, Taraji P. Henson and Tyrese are high-watt talents). You’d be more likely to catch “Baby Boy” on BET (which I don’t mean in any backhanded way) than at your local art house.
So much of great 1990s Black filmmaking, like “The Five Heartbeats,” “The Best Man,” “Juice,” “Waiting to Exhale,” and more, falls in that range: it’s instructive entertainment and art, much like the now-celebrated Blaxploitation films. Having “Baby Boy” on this release isn’t imperative for Criterion’s acknowledgment—this film would continue to hold great meaning for those who love it. Rather, it completes the vision of a director like Singleton, who made his films for the people and by the people. This release embodies that spirit and the man behind it.
