Hollywood should look to Jamaica

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds, Guest Columnist

It grieves me to see the golden opportunities being wasted because of myopia, insularity, and prejudice with regard to Jamaica's potential for generating far greater economic benefits from its culture, creative talents, and just being blessed.

I am drawn to this despair and frustration in seeing Jamaica's Tessanne Chin wooing the world with her voice, poise, and beauty, from NBC-TV 'The Voice' to the White House, and no bright minds in Hollywood to capitalise on this.

In the golden days of Hollywood, the bright-minded producers and studio executives like Hal Wallis, David O. Selznick, Daryl F. Zanuck, Louis B. Mayer, Harry Cohn, and the Warner brothers would have contracted a Tessanne Chin and have projects being developed to exploit her voice, attractiveness, and engaging personality to unleash on the world. She would play a singing mermaid in a project set in the lush Caribbean, or a sultry nightclub entertainer caught in an espionage caper in New York, or in a romantic comedy playing an immigrant nurse with a fantastic voice and unintentionally melting the heart of a rich philanderer.

However, this kind of thinking, sadly, is missing among the Hollywood leaders of today, and people like me who still possess the film-making sensibilities of old Hollywood never got the opportunity - well, if truth be told, I didn't seize the opportunity - to be in the decision-making process of Hollywood. When Leo Jaffe, then chairman of Columbia Pictures, responded to my wanting to work with Hollywood, in 1973-'74, and had Peter Guber, his vice-president of production, following through with correspondence to me, it was because Mr Jaffe thought I had something to offer. Mr Guber went on to become one of the most successful Hollywood producers and studio executives. My connection with Hollywood in those earlier days was with old-school Hollywood, when talent and creativity were nurtured.

The nature of film-making today is rapidly changing globally, as other nodes of film production have emerged around the world: Hong Kong, India, Australia and New Zealand, Nigeria, and the Middle East. There still is a ray of hope for Jamaica and the Caribbean. A Hollywood project that I have been working on for some time is in development, to go into production as a Jamaican film, with much direct and spin-off benefits to Jamaica.

Caribbean roots

Steve McQueen, a British film-maker with Caribbean roots, had his film 12 Years a Slave winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards, and John Ridley, an African-American writer, won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the same film.

Two black actors, Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor, both born in England with African roots, were in early contention for Best Actor in several awards shows this year, and Lupita Nyong'o, born in Mexico to African parents and growing up in Mexico, Kenya and the United States (a true child of the world), won the Best Supporting Actress Motion Picture Academy Award, in a black film. McQueen's film is the first by a black director to win the prestigious award of Best Film in the Academy's 86-year history. For those of us in the creative industries, this is as significant as President Barack Obama becoming president of the United States of America, and winning a second term.

But that passion, that urge, that commitment to unleash on the world that great creative talent, energy, and compelling stories emerging from Jamaica and the Caribbean seem still to elude the current Hollywood producers, motion-picture executives, and financiers. I still detect a great degree of hesitancy and reluctance to black material in Hollywood, even with there being more films depicting the black experience internationally. Old-school Hollywood, although operating in times of extreme racial prejudice, still took their chances on the side of talent. Sidney Poitier, Cicely Tyson, Harry Belafonte, Nat 'King' Cole, Brock Peters, and Lena Horne were given opportunities, and made into international stars. Four of the aforementioned had Caribbean ties.

One of the bright spots that increases the chance of more non-American talent like Tessanne Chin and Jamaican sprinting sensation Usain Bolt making it on to Hollywood movie lots in the near future is the wider net of financing now supporting Hollywood. Film-makers now have a wider pool to tap into. More monies are flowing into Hollywood productions from India, the Middle East, China, Europe, and Africa, and advanced technology has made equipment more affordable and very efficient, lowering production costs. This will increase the possibilities of more non-traditional Hollywood scripts and stories making it to film and enter the international film markets.

Look at other cultures

Hollywood should, therefore, become more open and democratic by looking elsewhere to other cultures, in particular the black cultures, for projects. Hollywood will recall what the so-called Blacksploitation films in the 1970s did to save the Hollywood film industry, experiencing weak box office as a result of lack of interest in the films Hollywood was releasing. As the world becomes truly more a global community, there exist more appetites wanting to share in more unfamiliar experiences, hence tourism as a growth industry for so many countries.

Despite the emergence of other countries producing films, the international film market is still led by Hollywood, and the American film industry. And it is time for it to adjust to the new dynamics emerging from around the world.

I will bet that someone somewhere has a script about Alexander Hamilton, a product of the West Indies rising to become a founding father of the United States, and its first secretary of the treasury, who was killed in a gun duel fought over deep political enmity; or of Russia's greatest poet, Alexander Pushkin, depicting his African heritage.

Jamaica and the Caribbean, for their part, must take a proactive stance in opting for public/private sector and local/international financing for establishing a profitable and sustainable Jamaica/Caribbean film industry. The creative industries, it has now been accepted by entities such as the World Bank, the United Nations Development Programme, and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, hold much potential for stimulating earnings among developing countries, and it should be the undertaking of the multilateral financial institutions and the developed countries to establish mechanisms that will induce funding for these growth areas. They just have to look at what reggae has done for Jamaica, and film-making has done for India and Nigeria, purely on the initiatives of small, local entrepreneurs, many unable to have got financing from the establishment banks.

I am a firm believer in God's will, or as my Muslim brothers and sisters will say, 'inshallah', and the age-old maxim, 'what is to be must be'. A colourful Jamaican politician, Isaac Barrant, in the 1940s and early 1950s, puts it this way: "What is fi yu, can't be un fi yu." Jamaica has had a very long history as a choice lot for Hollywood and international films. But it has more than scenic settings to offer: Much more. Jamaica should get theirs.

Julian 'Jingles' Reynolds is a writer, film-maker and entrepreneur who operates in the United States and Jamaica. He has been writing professionally for 48 years. His novel 'A Reason for Living' is to be published this year. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and fiwipro@yahoo.com.