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March 9, 2006
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March 9, 2006 |
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Chappelle film nets media spotlight
“Where are we again, Yellow something?” Touré (who said he doesn’t have a last name) asked as a makeup artist applied powder to his forehead in the lobby of the Little Art Theatre last Wednesday afternoon. It didn’t seem to matter to Touré, a news host with Black Entertainment Television, where he was as long as he got his interview with Dave Chappelle, the man he flew over cornfields from New York City to see. But he would have to wait in line, because across the street at Ye Olde Trail Tavern, “Good Morning America” co-anchor Robin Roberts was conducting her own interview with Chappelle. “When I told my colleagues at ‘GMA’ I was coming here to interview Dave, I got so many calls and e-mails my BlackBerry shut down,” Roberts said. Both reporters came to Yellow Springs with their camera crews to capture the famous comedian in his hometown on the eve of the premiere of his newest film, Dave Chappelle’s Block Party, which opened in theaters around the country and at the Little Art on Friday. Hollywood Regal Cinemas in Beavercreek rolled out a red carpet for a sneak preview of the film last Wednesday. Later that night Chappelle and some of the musicians who appear in the film performed at Wright State’s Nutter Center. The film is a documentary directed by Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) that opens with Chappelle walking around downtown Yellow Springs distributing “golden tickets” to random residents he meets and, later, at Central State to the university’s marching band. The tickets are for a block party Chappelle threw in Brooklyn in September 2004 that featured Chappelle’s favorite pop artists, such as Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Kanye West, Dead Prez and the Fugees. Last week Touré said that bringing the public to Chappelle’s hometown would be interesting because, unlike the throngs of people who would accost him on the streets in Miami or Los Angeles, people in Yellow Springs don’t seem to consider the fact that there is a celebrity living among them. The opening of the film was of limited interest to him, too. But what he really came all this way to talk about was why a year ago Chappelle walked away from the vehicle of stardom that had offered him fame, fortune and his own TV series, “Chappelle’s Show,” and has now suddenly reappeared in public with a smile on his face, Touré said. “If I said to my BET audience, ‘I’m going to talk to anyone in the country, who do you want to listen to,’ they’d say, we want to hear what Dave’s going to do next and find out where his head is at,” Touré said. “Dave Chappelle is perhaps the most compelling figure in black culture right now, in any genre,” he said. Roberts said that Chappelle is a “pop culture phenomenon,” because his comedy makes people laugh first, then think and reconsider their values. “There is meaning and impact behind what he says, and that’s why people are drawn to him. That’s why he’s at that level,” she said. It was a surprise to Jenny Cowperthwaite, the owner of the Little Art, when she got a call on Wednesday afternoon from the TV station crew members who were on Xenia Avenue and wanted to use the movie theater for their interviews. But she opened the business and let the crew do their thing. “It’s like a swarm of bees came in, and the best thing I can do is stay out of their way,” she said. On Thursday afternoon, Chappelle’s production team and friends and the musicians in the film returned to the theater and rolled out a mock red carpet for a private screening of Gondry’s new film, The Science of Sleep. “Good Morning America” aired its interview with Chappelle on Tuesday, March 7. Segments of the BET interview aired on the sttion last Thursday, Friday and over the weekend. Dave Chappelle’s Block Party plays at the Little Art until the end of next week. Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com
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