After debuting this weekend, Striaght Outta Compton has been receiving nothing but great reviews!
Ava DuVernay is one of the many who has expressed how she feels about the movie. Taking to Twitter, the award-winning director said this:
I saw @ComptonMovie last night w/ friends at the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza in South Central with a beautiful, alive, invested audience.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
Invested because many of them, like me, were there. Teens at the very time and in the very place depicted on screen. It had better be right.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
And damn, they got it right. Under @FGaryGray‘s brilliant direction + @MattyLibatique‘s gorgeous cinematography, I was transported back. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
Going into further detail, she remembered seeing “militarized Batterrams,” the Rodney King uprising, and the “red and blue bandanas” tied together, which symbolized the truce between the Bloods and the Crips.
I saw the militarized Batterrams again. Rolling up our streets like invaders in a war. My friend asked, “Is that real?” Yep. That happened.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
I saw the cavalier way that women were treated in hip hop spaces early on. Window dressing at most. Disposable at worst. Yep, that happened. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
I was in the street during the Rodney King Uprising. After that unjust verdict. Feeling anger. And community. And fire. And love. Happened.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
I remember the truce. So when that shot of red and blue bandanas tied together flashed on screen? Wild applause in my theater. It happened. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
DuVernay’s most powerful words came when she described how Gray captured “the stifling of our voice” and “the plight of the black artist.”
All the stifling of our voices as young black people in that place at that time while a war was going on against us. @FGaryGray captured it.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
He captured the plight of the black artist in general, once consumed by systems and structures not made for them. The struggle is real. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
To be a woman who loves hip hop at times is to be in love with your abuser. Because the music was and is that. And yet the culture is ours.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
DuVernay, who grew up in Compton, was particularly struck by one scene, which she called “Sunday on the ‘Shaw.” She wrote of the short sequence that brought her to tears:
Hundreds of black young people cruisin’ down Crenshaw. The raw energy. The cars. The brothers and sisters. The majesty of it all. A tear. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
It was maybe a one-minute sequence in the film but it all came rushing back. This film did that for me on multiple levels. It’s fantastic.
— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
Straight Outta Compton stars O’Shea Jackson Jr. as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E, Neil Brown Jr. as DJ Yella, and Aldis Hodge as MC Ren. Tracking the formation and disbanding of N.W.A., the film opened in theaters this weekend and pushed Universal past the $2 billion mark at the yearly North American box office. DuVernay congratulated Gray and his team for the success.
Congratulations to @FGaryGray and all involved. Another classic now under his belt. Your craft and care is on full display. Bravo, brother. — Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) August 16, 2015
