But in fact, the score is out there. [11], Since Van Peebles did not have the money to hire a composer, he composed the film's music score himself. As an adult, Sweetback performs in the whorehouse sex show. The initial idea for the film did not come clearly to him at first. Move!" - it becomes evident that, despite his youth, he is regarded as something of a sexual athlete. "[9], Van Peebles wanted "a victorious film where niggers could walk out standing tall instead of avoiding each other's eyes, looking once again like they'd had it". In 2000, Samuel L. Jackson starred as Shaft II, a relative of the original Shaft and an NYPD detective. The film supposedly was written to feature a white actor in the lead role, although in the novel on which it's based, Shaft is a Black detective. They grab and beat him violently, then, holding his bloodied face up to the camera, an off screen voice says, Its not him, to which another voice nonchalantly responds, So what. Their helmeted president challenges Sweetback to a duel: asked to decide the weapon and discovering she is a woman, he chooses sex and is judged to win. The police in the film are corrupt, brutal and above the law, torturing a pimp by setting off a gun next to his ear (causing him to go permanently deaf). Sweetback meets up with Mu-Mu and black gangsters drive them through South Central Los Angeles to the outskirts. side by side with an NYPD officer and an FBI analyst. At every turn Sweetback outsmarts, outruns, outsexes and outfoxes the Man (or the White Woman in the case of the funny but unnerving sex battle scene with a biker girl under a bridge overpass). We tend to see Blaxploitation in genre terms these days, as the sheer volume of movies following in the wake of Sweetback and Shaft led to an inevitable convalescence of ideas and tropes into an easily replicable formula. Huey P. Newton celebrated and welcomed the film's revolutionary implications, and Sweetback became required viewing for members of the Black Panther Party. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (Melvin van Peebles, 1971) Sweetback is full of downtrodden people in fear of the heavy hand of the law, whose only protection is through the militant solidarity of the Black Panthers. He was great; he was a very driven person, great imagination It was a real different, real radical [movie]. Van Peebles ended up performing the stunt nine times. The writer, Herman Raucher, who had based the script on friends of his who expressed liberal sentiments while still holding onto bigoted beliefs, objected to Van Peebles' efforts because he felt that the movie should be a parody of liberal culture. hellaguru Nov 01 2017 From the opening scene, I'd say Peebles is either the best father of all time or the worst. And it is mischievous and reactionary finally for anyone to suggest to Black people in 1971 that they are going to be able to screw their way across the Red Sea. The world is changing and the way were reflected onscreen has been colored, or as I call it, the mo tea suh? tribe. I will write more later but for now I wish to posit that this film was more the beginning of the Blaxploitation genre than Cotton Comes to Harlem. In 1971, Hollywood had hit a crossroads. The police badly beat up a black man sleeping with a white woman, believing him to be probably one of the fugitives, and that he deserves a beating in any case. "[28] Newton wrote that Sweetback "presents the need for unity among all members and institutions within the community of victims," contending that this is evidenced by the opening credits which state the film stars "The Black Community," a collective protagonist engaged in various acts of community solidarity that aid Sweetback in escaping. When police hear he might be at a rural hippie musical event, he successfully disguises himself by simulating sex in the bushes. Even though it is different in one important manner, which I will return to later, there is some context that is necessary to understanding the blaxploitation cinema. TAKE THE "SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG" TRIVA QUIZ. "[6][7], Because no studio would finance the film, Van Peebles put his own money into the production, and shot it independently. : Roots of the Baadasssss Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury), he gives Van Peebles his due by opening his book with an interview with Melvin Van Peebles, appropriately titled Melvin Van Peebles: Original Guerilla. . His son Mario Van Peebles also appears in a small role, playing the title character as a young boy. We were happy just to have stuff in the movie, to have our music on the big, wide screen. He parked the car, got out, and squatted down facing the sun. The cutting is aligned beautifully with its rhythmically enticing soundtrack, with the Earth, Wind and Fire music treated like an aural motif of repetitive passages with syncopated stops, starts and bursts. At some point in the production, he contracted gonorrhea, from one unsimulated sex scene, and successfully filed a compensation claim with the Director's Guild, which allowed him to buy more film. Sweetback is passive, too, in sexual encounters. web pages Exploitative, it certainly was. [7][8], Because Van Peebles could not afford a stunt man, he performed all of the stunts himself, which also included appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. IndieWire is a part of Penske Media Corporation. The music becomes a character itself, unseen but forcefully heard. The reissue of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song is part of a wider, year-long initiative, celebrating Stax Records 60th anniversary. In the end, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song was made wholly independently for $500,000, $100,00 of his own, the rest deferred, borrowed from friends, and gained through promotional stunts. This is not a space of cool gangsters and flashy pimps. The MGM produced Shaft was the one that signalled the black film as a commercially viable sub-genre of the crime film. In writer Darius James 1995 critical/anecdotal book survey of blaxploitation film, the title of which owes much to Van Peebles, Thats Blaxploitation! A notice at the beginning of the DVD states "In order to comply with UK law (the Protection of Children Act 1978), a number of images in the opening sequence of this film have been obscured. However, at the Tijuana River, Sweetback stabs the dogs and escapes into Mexico, swearing to return to "collect some dues". Melvin Van Peebles Dead: Director of Sweet Sweetback's - Variety Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) - IMDb And only two days later it would smash the house record at the Coronet Theater in Atlanta. Yeah! [5] Raucher ultimately exercised a clause in his contract that allowed him to novelize his own script, effectively preventing Peebles from too radically changing the film. [7][8], Van Peebles and several key crew members were armed because it was dangerous to attempt to create a film without the support of the union. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss song, went further than any American film to that point. They bled your Poppa. Tambay A. Obenson. Addressing the ensuing blaxploitation genre, Mario said, Real Hollywood isnt Black or white, its also green.. Still not having it. Outside of a few minutes of slightly inferior image, explained in an opening title card, the transfer is excellent, with strong vibrant colors, genuine film grain and a thick, well balanced sound track. Its a subtle but potent political message: white folk are not cool, white folk are not hip. The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were unique features in American cinema at the time. This was an example of how to make a film (a real movie), distribute it yourself, and most important, get paid. Sweetback Getting It Uptight And Preaching It So Hard The Bourgeois Reggin Angels In Heaven Turn AroundA3. There is a Making of from 2002 entitled The Real Deal (What it WasIs! With time, he became more aware of the way the movie fit in alongside other iconoclastic American movies made in the same era. This was pre-MAGA, Mario said. Van Peebles shot the film over a relatively short period of 19 days in order to reduce the possibility of the cast, most of whom were amateurs, showing on some days with haircuts or clothes different from the prior day. Donato Totaro has been the editor of the online film journal Offscreen since its inception in 1997. Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song became a surprise hit, and for a long time remained one of the most profitable independent films of all-time. Any type of film requiring an enormous technical sophistication at the shooting stage should not be attempted." However, it has left a lasting impression on American cinema. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is not a Hollywood movie. Uploaded by Things would change seemingly abruptly with the cycle of blaxploitation films that would run from 1971 to 1980. But as focused as it is about the human damage caused by oppression, the director was sadly oblivious that filming a naked little boy laying on top of a naked moaning woman and simulating intercourse is one of the worst kinds of oppression: exploitation of a child Women are there to get naked and have sex with Sweetback, that's about the extent of their characters. It's the kind of film that could arguably only have been made through the scrappy single-mindedness of a filmmaker like Van Peebles. To his credit Mims does not gloss over the problematic aspects of the film, like the representation of the women and the sex scene with 13-year old Mario Van Peebles. Two decades later, Martin Luther King Jr. would work its lyrics into his speeches, and not long after it was sung by over 50,000 attendees at his funeral. Van Peebles, who'd gone from working as a child in his father's tailor shop on the South Side to studying literature on an art scholarship at Wesleyan, had self-taught filmmaking when he turned a book he'd written about his experiences as a railway worker into a movie, at the suggestion of an excited reader who found him at work on the tracks. "[9], The film's fast-paced montages and jump cuts were novel features for an American movie at the time. But Van Peebles experienced enough creative interference while working on the film to realize that he could never make the kind of revolutionary film he had in mind under a studio, hence he set off to make a film on his own terms. Beetle agrees, and they arrest Sweetback. After a having made a trio short films in France based on his own short stories, using the experience to self-teach himself filmmaking, writer-musician-filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles made a racial parable comedy for Columbia Studios, Watermelon Man (1970), in which a white man (Godfrey Cambridge in not very convincing white face), wakes up to find himself black and learns first hand what it is like being black in America. The ensuing saga finds Sweetback constantly eluding capture as he sprints across a grimy American landscape riddled with racism and the alienating forces of an industrial society in which. 1971 SPECIAL REPORT: "SWEET SWEETBACK" Hezakya Newz & Films 166K subscribers 8.7K views 1 year ago Filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles responds to the critics of his controversial film Sweet. There is no romanticism in Van Peebles' portrayal of the ghetto. For one thing, the white Hollywood establishment played no part in its creation. Even musicals, it would take three months after the release of the movie before they would bring out an album." The success proved to Hollywood that black themed films could be profitable, which opened the door not only to the blaxploitation cycle, but for future black and independent filmmakers, from Julie Dash to Jamaa Fanaka to Charles Burnett to Spike Lee to Ava Duvernay to Barry Jenkins. For Sweetback to feature a Black man in the lead road was radical; for him to go up against the law and make it out alive was revolutionary. Towards the end of this scene, a cut shows the adult Sweetback (whom we have already seen running down a street in the image accompanying the opening dedication) in bed with the same woman. We hadn't signed with Clive Davis at the time. The rest of the film follows Sweetback on the run, using his sexuality as currency, encountering police violence and Hells Angels, and, with help from the Black Panthers, eventually escaping to Mexico. SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG: A Blaxploitation Classic - Medium "[30] Black nationalist poet and author Haki R. Madhubuti (Don L. Lee) agreed with Bennett's assessment of the film, stating that it was "a limited, money-making, auto-biographical fantasy of the odyssey of one Melvin Van Peebles through what he considered to be the Black community. With over 200 Blaxploitation movies made in the early '70s, this formula got as far as decadent Blaxploitation Horror crossovers like Blacula and Blackenstein, before becoming the stuff of parody in Spike Lee's movies of the '80s, and of sparkly-eyed homage in Tarantino's Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . Bennett argued that the film romanticized the poverty and misery of the ghetto and that "some men foolishly identify the black aesthetic with empty bellies and big bottomed prostitutes." In response, Van Peebles snapped his fingers, and his crew members were standing there with rifles. (As an aside, I am reminded of the brutal beating of a black undercover detective by the Nicolas Cage character in the opening scene of Wild at Heart, and the death of Ned (Morgan Freeman) by the abusive, sadistic sheriff Little Bill Daggett (Gene Hackman) ). However, on the way to the station, the cops arrest and then brutalize a young Black Panther named Mu-Mu. One night, Sweetback (as played by the adult Van Peebles) is performing in a sex show for customers at the brothel when two white cops come in to question his boss, Beetle ( Simon Chuckster ). [4], The New York Times critic Clayton Riley viewed the film favorably, commenting on its aesthetic innovation, but stated of the character of Sweetback that he "is the ultimate sexualist in whose seemingly vacant eyes and unrevealing mouth are written the protocols of American domestic colonialism". The introductory scene of Sweetback displays the footage of a 10-year-old Mario Van Peebles having sexual intercourse with one of the prostitutes from the brothel. Sweetback deconstructed more boundaries than most of the films it opened the door to, and Earth, Wind & Fire matched it note for note. The remastered LP also includes new liner notes from author, journalist and music critic Jeff Weiss, as well as from Melvins son Mario Van Peebles, director of New Jack City (1991) and 2003s Baadasssss!, which chronicles the making of his fathers landmark film. It was a very radical time in America. Onto this achievement perhaps one can ascribe a prophetic prescience to the warning that graced the final scene of "Sweet Sweetback's BaadAsssss Song": . The cross-label collaboration between Concord Music Group and Rhino Entertainment will highlight the hits, deep cuts and rare tracks from the Memphis labels heyday of the '60s and 70s. Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - Wikipedia Later, Beetle, now in a wheelchair following the police brutality, is brought to the morgue to identify a body believed to be Sweetback and smiles when he sees it is someone else. Peebles was the first American black man to direct a movie though it was French to be commercially released in the US: The Story of a Three-day Pass (1968), the success of which made Columbia studios seek out Van Peebles and eventually make The Watermelon Man. Shop the Stax Online Store: http://found.ee/StaxRecordsStorePick up exclusive collectible items, plus music from your favorite Stax artists and legends. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song ( 1971) 97 mins | Drama | April 1971 Cast: The Black Community, Melvin Van Peebles, Bruce Adams [ More ] Director: Melvin Van Peebles Writer: Melvin Van Peebles Producer: Melvin Van Peebles Cinematographer: Bob Maxwell Editor: Melvin Van Peebles Production Company: Yeah, Inc. HISTORY DETAILS CREDITS SYNOPSIS GENRE The music is central to structuring the film and giving it momentum. Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song - Full Movie - Archive.org And a black preacher who stares into the camera and tells the off-screen Sweetback Ill say a black Ava Maria for you. but I think even an all white movie would have gotten an X with that as it's opening scene . There was a real blind spot for folks who were members of the dominant culture.. . Sweetback tells the story of a sex-show worker, nicknamed "Sweet Sweetback" for his sexual prowess, who is taken into custody by two LAPD officers as a fall guy, with promises to be released the following day. Because he did not know how to read or write music, he numbered all of the keys on a piano so he could remember the melodies. The film works best when it follows Sweetback's odyssey from stud boy to proto-nationalist consciousness. Van Peebles relates watching the movie on opening night, in recently desegregated Atlanta: "There was an old Black lady sitting beside me, and when Sweetback was out in the desert she said, 'Oh Lord, let him die. Elaine Brown, the Black Panther Party's Minister for Information, released two albums with the jazz visionary Horace Tapscott, and his Pan-Afrikan People's Arkestra. In this regard, Melvin Van Peebles film makes an interesting comparison with Spike Lees BlacKkKlansman, where a police officer is the hero. April 23, 2021 Revisiting Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is not wholly Blaxploitation. Van Peebles was given a $50,000 loan by Bill Cosby to complete the film. His secretary at the time was sleeping with a member of a then-unknown funk and soul group that had recently moved to L.A. from Chicago and were working on their first album, and persuaded him to get them involved. Audiences at first didnt know what the heck it was.. But clearly, in hindsight, which is an acceptable position to hold when it comes to genre theory, where industry and critical conceptions of genre differ, Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song is the grandfather of blaxploitation. One of those ladies takes his cherry. In a review of that film, Roger Ebert wrote, "It's clear that (the real) Mario admires his father while at the same time harboring some resentment against his old man's strong-willed, single-minded treatment of people.". I didnt get the big picture until later, he said, noting that he later found out his father received death threats as a result of the production. The film is messy and disjointed but that makes it way more interesting than most of the more formulaic and . We were a very new group, so for us to do a soundtrack at the beginning of our careers was amazing. It shows not only the movie but the whole idea that the movie has. This ended up in the final cut of the film. The women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and large penis. When it was. ), which sees Van Peebles walking the streets of Paris and in his apartment giving us his words of black wisdom and thoughts on the film (22 minutes); a straight forward talking head documentary of Van Peebles talking about his filmmaking career (23 min.). In another scene they break into a bedroom where a black man they think is Sweetback is in the throes of sex with a white woman. With that our hero comes of age, raised in a whorehouse and forging his life skills-while plying his considerable physical endowment-in the sex trade. Earth, Wind & Fire pulled off something truly special, so early in their career, a kind of funk music that could be both popular and genuinely cinematicone minute grooving along with a catchy hook, the other unleashed into an atonal blaze that recalls the celestial flights of John Coltrane and Sun Ra, or the hallucinogenic concrte of Delia Derbyshire. This culminated in the superspade of the blaxploitation film, which may not have been what the NAACP had in mind, but it helped the industry to realize the potential of black cinema and was a whole lot more appealing for black audiences than Sambo stereotypes of the earlier period (which explains the anecdotal evidence of black audiences cheering and clapping during scenes of black characters beating on white characters). 'Sweet' revenge! Melvin Van Peebles brings his X-rated masterpiece to This film was made at a time when you didnt really see Black people onscreen with facial hair, Mario told the crowd, let alone some of the crazy shit my dad does in this movie.. No doubt influenced by the 1961 book by Texan John Howard Griffin and same titled 1964 film Black Like Me, in which a white reporter assumes a black identity and travels the South to record his experiences, Watermelon Man turned out to be a moderate success for Columbia Studios and who were sufficiently pleased to offer Van Peebles a three picture deal. "[31], Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is considered to be an important film in the history of African-American cinema. [2] He received a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the project. Black Panther cast Martin Freeman as a not-too-hip but ultimately heroic CIA officer who plays a vital role in helping save Wakandaa particularly pernicious bit of PR, not only given the CIA's track record of meddling in African politics, but also for its role in bringing down the real-life Black Panthers through their domestic surveillance program, Operation Chaos. Very few look at film with sound considered as a creative third dimension. From there, it inspired a range of low-budget Black-centric films in the decade ahead, from Shaft to Superfly and beyond. In the opening scene, the young orphaned Sweetback, newly taken in at the brothel, is raped by one of the sex workers. For many years now the video label Vinegar Syndrome (which is partnered with an in-house lab, OCN Digital Labs) has been at the top of the heap when it comes to preserving and promoting cult cinema. Van Peebles hummed the melodies and taught them his notation method, and the band arranged the music around this. The opening moments alone . In the film Melvin Van Peebles plays a black gigolo nicknamed Sweetback for his sexual prowess and legend has it that some of the scenes featured non-simulated sex (maybe those scenes where there was a union visit?). Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song - Rotten Tomatoes [23] Stephen Holden in The New York Times called it "an innovative, yet politically inflammatory film". The music reflects the onscreen chaos, moments of dissonant free jazz convey panic, while tracks like "Come On Feet" up the tempo to a breakbeat-driven spring, as Sweetback once again is forced to run for his life. Films such as Midnight Cowboy (1969) and A Clockwork Orange) (1971) were branded an X-Rating. hired by a Harlem mobster, created on a shoestring budget of $500,000 and starring Richard Roundtree in the lead role, who up to that point had mostly played in commercials. Sweet back runs through most of the 2nd part of the movie. The opening scene happens to be very revealing and striking. Sweetback was also wounded in the shootout and both stows away and hitches rides on trucks and a train heading south. Don't let those men kill him.' Not only was this practically unheard of, but given the lack of opportunities for people of color on film sets, many working on the film learned on the job. The Film That Made 'Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song' Possible It's a portrait of a reluctantly changing America. In his essay "The Emancipation Orgasm," he highlights the movie's sexual fantasism, stating quite bluntly, "It is necessary to say frankly that nobody ever fucked his way to freedom. Her memories of being dragged to see Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) by my father (of course) remain quite visceral, and I adore her attempt to sleep it away. Lacking a budget for stunts, Van Peebles performed them all by himself, and at one point, after blowing up a car for a scene, continued to film as the fire department arrived, getting a shot for free. Rounding out the special features is a gallery of archival newspaper clippings, a trailer, and excellent liner notes by Travis Crawford. 13 minutes (3180 words). But the popularity of the film in those theaters lead it to find a life in wider release, where it ultimately grossed $15 million and was embraced by the Black Panthers. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) Crime, Drama, Thriller [USA:R, 1 h 37 min] Simon Chuckster, Melvin Van Peebles, Hubert Scales, John Dullaghan Director: Melvin Van Peebles . No other blaxploitation film is as experimental as Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. Indeed, it can be argued that because it was written, produced and directed by an American-born African outside of Hollywood, the film is not truly part of the blaxploitation genre, yet it cannot be denied that it shares certain thematic similarities. As a 13-year-old on the set of the 1971 production (where he cameos in the sexually explicit opening scene), Mario said that the representational value of Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song wasnt part of his experience. He next visits an old girlfriend, who similarly refuses him aid but cuts his handcuffs off in exchange for sex. Fucking will not set you free. Videodrome: Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) Volume 90% 00:00 1:37:40 Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song - Full Movie by Melvin Van Peebles Publication date 1971 Topics erotic movie, milf, culture Language English After saving a Black Panther from some racist cops, a black male prostitute goes on the run from "the man" with the help of the ghetto community and some disillusioned Hells Angels. In another review, Riley explained that "Sweetback, the profane sexual athlete and fugitive, is based on a reality that is Black. About Press Copyright Contact us Creators Advertise Developers Terms Privacy Policy & Safety How YouTube works Test new features NFL Sunday Ticket Press Copyright . This article isn't about Shaft. The backdrop of the film is cold and harsh; the climate of fear palpable. "FILM VIEW; Sweet Sweetback's World Revisited", "Blaxploitation: Funk Goes to the Movies", "American Cinematheque Sets Melvin Van Peebles Tribute: The event, beginning today at the Directors Guild, will celebrate the man, the artist and his movies", "In the early '70s, blaxploitation upended Hollywood stereotypes", Melvin Van Peebles's oral history video excerpts, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sweet_Sweetback%27s_Baadasssss_Song&oldid=1162594383, This page was last edited on 30 June 2023, at 02:40. [24] The end of the film was shocking to Black viewers who had expected that Sweetback would perish at the hands of the policea common, even inevitable, fate of Black men "on the run" in prior films. Flashback To 1971 Discord Over Sweet Sweetbacks Baadasssss Song. Indiewire, May 22, 2012. The Stax 60 campaign will honor the music from Soulsville USA through curated collections, deluxe box sets, hi-resolution audio, streaming playlists and unique vinyl initiatives.Track listing:A1. Running through arid country, he survives by drinking from a puddle and eating a lizard. notcoming.com | Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song As an adult, Sweetback performs in the whorehouse sex show . Sweet Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) is a black orphan who, having grown up in a brothel, now works there as part of a sex show. It's about another film, released earlier in 1971. In 1967 a study revealed that in major cities blacks made up 30% of box-office take, while being only 15% of the population. And an interview with actress Niva Rochelle One Baadasssss Woman!, the woman from the yelling scene I described above (32 minutes). Published . (2003), in which Mario plays his father. The outdoor event, taking place in the newly opened NYFF venue of Damrosch Park, served as a timely reminder of the movies massive cultural impact as well as its value in proving that movies with Black protagonists had commercial appeal. . I'm talking about Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Volume 22, Issue 11 / November 2018 "[21] The Region 2 DVD release from BFI Video has the opening sex sequences altered. Van Peebles ended up playing the part himself. It is in this disenfranchised community--and not the sterile offices of the NAACP--that he seeks and finds refuge. When the scene was shot, a fire truck showed up. Despite having no real knowledge of music, Melvin wrote the melodies for the soundtrack, using a piano with the keys numbered so he could write down the sequences. The Shaft of 2019 resurrected itself as a buddy cop comedy created with a budget of $35 million, reprising Richard Roundtree as the aged original, along with Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft II and Jessie T. Usher as his son, JJ Shaft, a data analyst for the FBI.
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