Arts & Entertainment
FILM: Under Pressure Innocent Teens Confess in Central Park Case
son, Korey Wise, Yusef Salaam and Ray-
mond Santana, Jr., teenagers who had been
denied their right to an attorney. Although
none of the five had ever been arrested
before, they were all convicted of rape and
attempted murder on the strength of those
incriminating admissions alone.
Part of the explanation for the legal lynch-
ing was that the victim was a wealthy white
woman while the accused were poor black
kids from Harlem. The press was all too
willing to exploit the hot button issues of
color and class, and the media sensational-
ized the case’s lurid details, coining the
term “wilding” to describe the alleged
behavior of the defendants.
Real estate magnate Donald Trump even
took out full-page ads in every New York
City daily newspaper, calling for the death
penalty and saying that the boys “should be
executed for their crimes.” In the face of the
vigilante-like demand for vengeance, no
one seemed concerned that the suspects’
DNA failed to match the only semen found
at the scene.
Sadly, they were only exonerated in 2002
after having completely served sentences
ranging from 6 to 13 years when Matias
Reyes, a serial rapist whose DNA was a
match, confessed to the crime because of
his guilty conscience. This gross miscar-
riage of justice is recounted in The Central
Park Five, a riveting documentary co-
directed by the father-daughter team of Ken
and Sarah Burns.
The film features reams of archival
footage, including videotapes of the framed
quintet’s coerced confessions. Mixed in are
present-day reflections by them, their
lawyers, and relatives, as well as by politi-
cians, prosecutors and other pivotal players.
A heartbreaking expose’ about a rush to
judgment which ruined five, innocent
young lives.
Excellent (4 stars)
Unrated
Running time: 119 minutes
Distributor: Sundance Selects
Around 9 PM on April 19, 1989, a 28
year-old, female jogger was brutally beaten,
sexually assaulted and left for dead in a
wooded area of Central Park located off the
beaten path. Because she was an investment
banker with an Ivy League pedigree, the
NYPD felt the pressure to apprehend the
perpetrators of the heinous crime ASAP.
Within hours, cops had extracted confes-
sions from Anton McCray, Kevin Richard-
Foxx
an amazing and courageous project.
good guy gets his woman.
fun stuff.
KW: Children’s book author Irene Smalls
says: In this film you turn the docile stupid
black man myth on its head. You also por-
tray the enduring love of a black man for his
woman.
JF: Most definitely! When you see the
slave who’s been chained and whipped with
no way out, and he finally catches up to this,
some people call that revenge. But I say,
“No, it’s righting a wrong at that time.”
You’ve been wronged for so long, and
here’s your karma personified, standing in
this funny blue suit. And on the end of that
suit is your maker. You’ve never seen that in
a movie before, at least not when it comes
to slavery. Ordinarily, when the slave gets a
chance to hold the whip or the gun, they
start singing a hymn or doing the speech
about “If I do this, I’ll be as bad as you.” We
come out with a mix-tape, and that’s it. But
with Quentin Tarantino, it’s just like a regu-
lar Western. The bad guy has to pay, and the
KW: Have you seen the film with a black
audience? Were people talking back at the
screen?
JF: Yeah, they were yelling like crazy.
KW: Nick Antoine was wondering
whether you’re ever going to get around to
doing Skank Robbers, that long-rumored
film based on the characters Wanda and
Sheneneh that you and Martin Lawrence
played on In Living Color?
JF: No, that’s not going to happen.
continued from page 7
world, Will Smith, was going to work
with Quentin Tarantino. And I was like,
“Damn! There’s another project I didn’t
know nothing about.” But luckily, I some-
how got a chance to meet Quentin and read
the script which I thought was brilliant.
Next thing you know, I was in a room talk-
ing with him about trying to make it hap-
pen.
KW: Did you have any reservations?
JF: I didn’t have a knee-jerk reaction like
some people did to the language and the
violence. My stepfather was a history
teacher at Lincoln High School in Dallas.
So, I was already familiar with the N-word
and the brutality of slavery. What I was
drawn to was the love story between Djan-
go and Broomhilda and how he defends and
gets the girl in the end. I thought it was just
KW: Irene also says: In both your stage
name and your career choices you’ve paid
homage to great black artists who have
come before you. Is this film another
acknowledgement of that legacy?
JF: Absolutely! I know this might sound
strange, but some of the people I actually
studied for this film were a little more con-
temporary. Of course, I started with the
original film Django and Clint Eastwood’s
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, but I also
watched Wesley Snipes in New Jack City,
and Denzel Washington in Glory and A Sol-
dier’s Story. Those performances moved me
in a way that I cannot explain. So, you’re
seeing me tip my hat to those guys in this
film.
KW: Film student Jamaal Green says:
Jamie, you are such a talent in so many
areas, it seems like there isn’t anything you
can’t do. Is there any chance that directing
will be something you may try next?
JF: We’re doing a directing thing with
Canon and Ron Howard, a special where we
have people send in pictures. I would also
like to direct some comedies with people
like Chris Tucker, Kevin Hart and Mike
Epps, and go to work with them on some
Page 8 The Portland Skanner
December 19, 2012
KW: This question is from your co-star
Kerry Washington: If you were an animal,
what animal would you be?
JF: Wow! If I were an animal, I would be
an eagle.
KW: The Melissa Harris-Perry question:
How did your first big heartbreak impact
who you are as a person?
JF: Guys don’t adapt as well as women do
to getting their heart broken for the first
time. It’s tragic. I really wanted to be in
love, get married, have kids and buy a
wood-paneled station wagon for the family.
But it didn’t work out, and, boy, it wrecked
it!
KW: Would you mind coming up with a
Jamie Foxx question I could ask other
celebrities when I interview them?
JF: Hmm… [Thinks] If you only had 24
hours to live, what would you do? Would
you do the bad stuff, you never got a chance
to do, or would you do good stuff to make
sure you make it into heaven?