Piotr Szyja Poetic Justice viewing questions 1.

What is the purpose of the trick beginning (the movie within a movie)? The fragment of another movie presented at the beginning of Poetic Justice was in opinion put there to highlight the difference between reality and unreality. Justice and her boyfriend watch a film where very high class people enact a fantastic scene. In the movie we can see that a woman kills a man. And in reality, Justices boyfriend also gets killed. While in the movie death was somehow meaningful, stemmed from passion, and it was invisible (we could only see a woman shooting) in reality death was meaningless (a revenge for a fight at the mall) and very dirty. 2. Comment on the recurrent motif of helicopters (in PJ and Boyz) The motif of helicopters is more visible in Boyz'n the Hood. There it symbolizes the fact that the neighborhood was constantly being watched by police or media, they were omnipresent, but they did not do anything, just watch and keep the troubles inside the Hood. In Poetic Justice helicopters are less visible. In 1 scene we can see one flying in the sky, its a military helicopter. In the other scene we at night we can hear the noise and see the spotlight. The meaning of them seems to be the same like in the previous movie, since they only appear in LA, not when characters are outside the city. 3. Singleton takes the story of Poetic Justice out of South Central LA. Why? He does that in order to answer a question what a neighborhood really is and why is it that way. In the family reunion scene we can that in the neighborhood what is missing is the family relations among people, feeling of unity, friendliness, open attitude and care about each other. We can see fighting boys being separated by the parents and then punished for misbehavior and violence. We can hear aunts speaking about the importance of the way kids are being raised. In the scene at a cultural festival we can see that neighborhood, although its a place of black people, lacks they joyful affirmation of blackness. People are not focusing on what they have in common and on solving their problems. The neighborhood is a particular, characteristic place, it is not only where people live but also what they have in their heads. In

the mentioned scenes we can hear Lucky saying Ive never seen so many black folks in one place without a fight and I dont get a chance to think in the city. People from the neighborhood carry it with them, and it show wherever they are, as we can see in the way Iesha and Chicago behave. 4. Who is the protagonist of this film? Who do we identify with? There are two protagonists, Justice and Lucky. We identify with them because they are somehow outsiders to the neighborhood, we support them in getting together despite the burden that the Hood has put upon them. 5. Apart from those mentioned above, what other parallels can you find between Singletons two films? Main characters, on one hand Lucky and Justice, on the other Tre and Ricky, are outsiders to the neighborhood, they are not like other people, they dont agree with reality and try to go their own way. In both film the main protagonist reacts to the big and painful violence (the same type of violence a death of a very close friend) is a similar way, that is a non-violent way. In Boyz Tre eventually gets out of the car and does not participate in the bloody revenge, he returns to his father. In Poetic Justice Lucky decides to take his cousins equipment and continue his mission. Both movies show solutions to the problems of the neighborhood. On one hand its education, on the other its a hobby or passion, especially music. In both movies its individualism and non-conformism. 6. How is Poetic Justice different from Boyzn the Hood in terms of its concerns but also visually, in its rhythm, in the images it works with? Boyz is a more political movie, focused on the neighborhood as a whole, while Poetic Justice seems to be primarily a love story that just happens to take place with the neighborhood in the background, and where comments on the neighborhood are less

obvious and clear, because theyre reflected by the relations between characters, theyre not explicitly show or told. In Boyz we have more strands, some side ones introduced just for the purpose of the political message (like the drug addict mother). The story is broader and dynamic, but more shallow. Poetic Justice is slower, the story is more focused and consistent, there are less strands. Boyz is more focused on the situations, conditions. Poetic Justice is more focused on people, their psychology and emotions. We have special scenes with poems that reflect Justices thoughts and feelings. We have shoots of the landscape etc.