While many people consider a “coming of age” story to center on teenagers who go through some sort of painstaking experience that thrusts them into the realm of adulthood, Jamal Joseph’s new film, “Chapter & Verse” is the exception to the rule with it’s much needed empathetic view into life after incarceration.
Through the eyes of Sir Lance played by the film’s co-writer, Daniel Beaty, the 30-something is forced to re-learn his Harlem neighborhood while doing his best to navigate his new-normal which includes living in a half-way house with a curfew, participating in frequent drug tests and an inability to work within his field of computer science because of his prison record. Joseph, a former Black Panther now collegiate professor was incarcerated for nearly ten years and Beaty’s father and brother’s bouts with drug addictions resulted in a revolving door of jail stints. Said personal experiences within the prison system allowed Beaty and Joseph to create a compelling tale with “Chapter & Verse” that will certainly leave the audiences in an emotional wreck with it’s ending. In an exclusive interview with the LA Sentinel, Beaty as well as the film’s co-star, legendary actress, Loretta Devine, give insight into what makes “Chapter & Verse” a must-see film and what viewers can do to help detour young men of color from constantly re-entering the prison systems.
LAS: What attracted you to the role of Miss Maddy?
Loretta Devine: I had seen Daniel Beaty’s work several times, he’s done several one-man shows. He contacted me and let me know that he was interested in me being apart of the film. I read the script and I thought it was really incredibly written about a young man trying to restart his life after prison..
LAS: Do you think your character could have been more proactive in detouring your grandson from the temptations of joining a gang?
LD: Ty (Khadim Diop) wasn’t in a gang yet but he was very close to it. He was a very talented young man which was shown in the film through his artwork and his interest but he was really being pulled the wrong way which is how life is. Sometimes people come into your life to save your life and Daniel’s character Lance became Miss Maddy’s saving grace because he was the one that saved her grandson when she couldn’t. So to me that’s what the film is mostly about. Oftentimes when kids are left with their grandparents they’re not agile enough to keep up with all of the things that they’re going through. Miss Maddy was having trouble understanding the internet. You know how young people know all about that so I think that’s very relevant to what’s happening to grandparents today with their young kids that they’re having to raise. I think that was what’s so poignant about the story, it shows some of the reality of what grandparents of young kids are going through today.
LAS: The ending of the film seems to contradict another scene where the men participate in a Black Lives Matter march. How can we say black lives matter when it comes to police brutality but not to policing of black on black crime?
LD: [Lance] was coming from where his mental state was. He handled business the way he knew how to handle business. Black lives do matter has nothing to do with our race against our race. People solve problems the way they solve problems coming from the headspace that they and that’s what Lance did.
Source: LA Sentinel | Zon D’Amour
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