ROSEWOOD
A film review by Scott Renshaw
Copyright 1997 Scott Renshaw
(Warner Bros.) Starring: Jon Voight, Ving Rhames, Don Cheadle, Bruce McGill, Esther Rolle, Loren Dean, Elise Neal, Michael Rooker, Cahterine Kellner. Screenplay: Gregory Poirier. Producer: Jon Peters. Director: John Singleton. MPAA Rating: R (violence, sexual situations, adult themes) Running Time: 139 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.
In October 1994, a South Carolina woman named Susan Smith claimed that she was assaulted by a black man who then stole her car with her two young sons inside. Eventually, Smith herself confessed to, and was found guilty of, murdering her own children, but for a while people were on the lookout for a non-existent black assailant. This not-so-anecdotal aside is offered for anyone who might think of ROSEWOOD simply as a sad footnote in American history. Even if that were the case, John Singleton's ROSEWOOD would still be a powerful drama, but it is something more. It is a chilling study of the culture of racism which challenges us to consider whether we still live in a country where, as one character in ROSEWOOD describes it, "nigger is just another word for guilty."
ROSEWOOD begins on December 31, 1922 in a rural Florida county, focusing on two neighboring communities: the all-white town of Sumner, and the nearly all-black town of Rosewood. As the year prepares to turn, unusual events occur in both towns. In Rosewood, a stranger named Mann (Ving Rhames) rides into town and considers settling down there; in Sumner, a white woman named Fannie Taylor (Catherine Kellner) is beaten by her white lover, but accuses an unknown black man of the crime. Though the sheriff of Sumner (Michael Rooker) urges restraint, it doesn't take long for the citizens to band together in a lynch mob to search for an escaped convict rumored to be in the area. Soon ROSEWOOD erupts in flames and chaos, with every inhabitant a suspected collaborator and every home a suspected hiding place. Only two people have a chance to lead some of the residents of Rosewood to safety: Mann, and white shopkeeper John Wright (Jon Voight).
After two films in which John Singleton let his urge to lecture interfere in the storytelling (POETIC JUSTICE and HIGHER LEARNING), he has returned to the masterful composition and dramatic power of BOYZ N THE HOOD. In ROSEWOOD, we have the opportunity to get to know the inhabitants of both Sumner and Rosewood as individuals, compounding the tragedy even as it makes the triumphs more affecting. Even the towns themselves develop distinct personalities: while Rosewood is a thriving town where the residents take pride in the fact that they own almost all the land, Sumner is a town of less picturesque wooden homes where the white residents actually envy their black counterparts in Rosewood. The situation recalls similar reactions against successful minorities in more contemporary times, and focuses the double-edged "logic" of racism: an unsuccessful minority is shiftless, while a successful minority is uppity, or taking what "rightfully" belongs to whites.
The great success of ROSEWOOD is that it turns its story into broader commentary on how racism functions without sacrificing that story. Many of the individual images in ROSEWOOD are riveting, portraying unromanticized violence and pastoral beauty with equal effectiveness thanks to the impressive cinematography of Johnny E. Jensen. The performances are also uniformly strong, led by Don Cheadle as strong, defiant Sylvester Carrier and Jon Voight (in his best role in a decade) as the reluctant hero Wright. Then, beyond the events of the principal narrative, you begin to notice that ROSEWOOD is presenting one of the most complex examinations of racism ever committed to film. Characters are not presented in black-and-white in their views of black and white. There is a continuum of culpability, from Wright's opportunistic treatment of his black neighbors to the sheriff's crimes of omission to the matter-of-fact brutality of Duke (Bruce McGill), a Sumner resident determined to teach his son "how the world is." It is one of the film's most chilling moments when the mob acknowledges with a chuckle that no one really believes a black man assaulted the notably promiscuous Fannie. For them, a lynch mob isn't even about some perverted notion of justice. It's just how the world is.
The only stumbles in ROSEWOOD occur when screenwriter Gregory Poirier bows to convention. A romance between Mann and a young schoolteacher (Elise Neal) adds little to the story but a reason for a climactic embrace; a few scenes near the end, including a big resolution within Wright's family, seem designed simply to garner audience applause. A two hours and twenty minutes, ROSEWOOD does start to drag once the lengthy pursuit of the survivors through the swamps begins, but you continue to care because Singleton has taken the time to make those lives matter. It's worth sticking through to the ending because in ROSEWOOD, the ending is actually a sort of beginning. Though we only need to look at headlines to understand that ROSEWOOD sometimes is about the way the world still is, it is also about the way the world could be.
On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 riot boyz: 8.
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