Chiwetel Ejiofor by Stacy M. BrownFor New Pittsburgh Courier(NNPA)—Famed film director John Singleton said when movies about African-Americans debut, he’s always the first to be called to lend insight.Singleton, who directed the 1991 critically-acclaimed drama “Boyz in the Hood,” said that recently his telephone hasn’t stopped ringing “I’d like to talk about other movies, too,” he said, but acknowledged that he doesn’t mind weighing in on the recent avalanche of Black films, including what many view as an Oscar front-runner, “12 Years a Slave.” “I’ve seen it and I can tell you it’s a work of art,” said Singleton, 45.
This image released by Fox Searchlight shows Michael Fassbender, left, Lupita Nyong'o and Chiwetel Ejiofor, right, in a scene from "12 Years A Slave." (AP Photo/Fox Searchlight, Francois Duhamel) I’ll never know what it means to be a slave, producing forced, free labor, in the United States prior to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. More definitively, I could not imagine what it would mean to be a legally free person and still be held captive for little over a decade.
British director Steve McQueen, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o and British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor attend the pre-reception of the Accenture Gala Screening of "12 Years A Slave" at the Langham Hotel, during the 57th BFI London Film Festival in partnership with American Express® on Friday Oct. 18, 2013, in London. (Photo by Jon Furniss/Invision for BFI/AP Images) by Lewis Beale (CNN) -- Slavery is the most abhorrent chapter in America's history. Everyone knows it happened, but few people know much about it or want to think about it. Which means that it's not exactly something that pops up with regularity in popular entertainment--even though slavery's legacy, 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, is still very much with us.
