|
(In 1971
filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles’ Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song! debuted in
theatres nationwide. The independently produced film set the stage for the
blaxploitation films of the 1970’s and put black cinema and the Van Peebles
name on the map. Now, 33 years later, his son, filmmaker-actor Mario Van
Peebles has created Baadasssss! a film based on the making of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss
Song! starring the younger Van Peebles as his father. So,
having been rudely chastised by Sayre for having not seen Sweet Sweetbacks
Baadasssss Song!, LFG spiritual advisor Colin O’Dell rented the film and
found time to reflect on its landmark status. He also promises to see Baadasssss
and tell you what he thinks.)
 In
1971, a film was released that told the story of a black man. This in
itself was pretty out of the ordinary, but even stranger, the black man
wasn’t being saved by some benevolent white lawyer, and he wasn’t laying
down for some form of white authority. No, this black man was having
a whole lot of sex and beating the hell out of white cops! Not only that,
but the man was celebrated onscreen as a hero, and, he got away! In order
for this to happen, the film was conceived, written, directed, produced,
edited and scored by one (black) man with a vision. That man was Melvin Van
Peebles. The film was Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song!, and the
course of black and independent cinema would never be the same again.
Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasssss! was, and is Melvin Van Peebles’ film in more
ways than one. You see, as already mentioned, Van Peebles didn’t just star,
direct, and produce the film. No he also edited, wrote, and composed it.
By 1971, Melvin Van Peebles had attained some notoriety for his French
produced debut film The Story of a Three Day Pass which was released
to critical acclaim in 1968. With his newfound “fame,” Peebles returned to
the U.S., and, after making the successful racial satire Watermelon Man,
sought to produce a film that, in his own words, would “put it to the man.”
Not surprisingly, “the man” decided not to finance such a project. Thus the
independent legacy began as Van Peebles struggled to finance the picture by
his lonesome, taking out loans (one from none other than Bill Cosby,
recently making news for making stupid comments about black people!) and
using non-professional actors and non-union workers for his film. Somehow,
the film was made and, despite early harsh reviews, went on to gross between
$10 and $15 million dollars with an X rating (Van Peebles adorned movie
posters with the phrase “rated X by an all white jury”).
A financial, and
eventually, critical success, the film’s impact would be first played out
over the course of the 1970s in the film genre known as blaxploitation.
Emulated in the hands of Hollywood studios though, other blaxploitation
flicks played like a diluted version of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss
Song! As Van Peebles’ son Mario (who pre-pubescently appears in a
risqué nude scene early in Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song!) tells
it, “with movies like Shaft and Superfly the studios co-opted
my dad’s idea, but without the revolutionary core.” Perhaps that’s why
Melvin is quick to remind that Sweetback’s legacy is more than
just the blaxploitation films that followed: “I’m not just the godfather of
black independent film, but of independent film, period. Not just Foxy
Brown but The Blair Witch Project and Lost In Translation.
And with the Sweetback soundtrack album (Earth, Wind, and Fire’s first CD),
I invented the use of music as a selling tool for movies, something which
has now become ubiquitous.”
So then, it was this
watershed of black and independent filmmaking, shot on location that
plumbed the depths of the seedy side of 1971 Los Angeles. The story of a
black gigolo on the run from the law after beating up two white policemen as
they brutally beat a black revolutionary, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss
Song! is certainly a fuck you to white Amerkkka. The cops are evil,
racist, and brutal (not to mention stupid). Sweetback is a man of few words
(six lines, the template for many a performance by California’s Governor)
and we get little of his motives. But he is political, just not
overtly. When, midway thru the film, Sweetback is reunited with the
black
revolutionary he saved from the cops, he denies a ride to safety, instead
insisting the wounded revolutionary be taken because, “he is our future.”
The films viewpoint at
the time was unique and refreshing, marking perhaps the first time a black
perspective was used on the silver screen. It was a perspective that
presented as normal the racism and brutality of the white police force. The
film unflinchingly examined the squalor of the ghetto and presented a new
light on the truly hedonistic nature of interactions between blacks and
whites in the post civil rights era. Beyond this, the film featured scenes
of black sexuality that are still rather unheard of in American
cinema today (he has sex with a white woman and doesn’t die; quick, name
five films this has happened in). Groundbreaking not only for its story and
the skin color of its cast and production team, on the technical side, the
film incorporated extremely stylistic editing and photography, both for
reasons of aesthetics and of budget. But while violence, sex, and racism
are the main themes of the film, it should be noted that Peebles also found
time to slip in a rather wicked sense of humor (some of the sex scenes; the
most graphic scene of man taking shit EVER!).
Operating on a shoestring
budget, there are a number of innovative techniques used in Sweetback,
most
notably concerning the editing and the photography. The editing is manic to
say the least. Jump cuts, cross-fades, repeating the same shot any number
of times either by jumping to it or fading it, split screens and a
soundtrack that chants to the protagonist are just a few of the editing
feats seen here. Watching the film, I couldn’t help but be reminded at
least a little of Nicolas Roeg’s editing techniques in “Walkabout” which was
also released in 1971. The similarity between Roeg and Peebles would be
that both were influenced by the French New Wave, which preached merely a
use of the new and the innovative. Peebles often makes the point in
interviews that his innovation comes from being self taught, but surely his
years in the New Wave environment in France helped as well.
Innovative editing
techniques, independent landmark, precursor to blaxploitation, a
Baadassss soundtrack and more. Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song!
is fun for the whole family, and essential for LFGers, so do yourself a
favor, rent Sweetback on DVD and then go see Baadasssss!, the
new film written, directed, and starring Mario Van Peeples, in theatres June
4th for the story behind the making of this watershed film in black and
independent cinema.
-Colin O’Dell
DISCUSS THIS TOPIC ON THE MESSAGE BOARD
|
