With Sweet Sweetback, Melvin Van Peebles–who wrote, produced, edited, directed and starred in the film–achieved a remarkable piece audiovisual art, and in the process drafted a roadmap to success for a generation of young black filmmakers. A landmark in Black filmmaking in the U.S., this angry, extravagant, loud, belligerent movie reaches a high pitch early on and stays there. Videodrome: Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971), Unearthed, Vol. Photo Credits: Netflix; Pop TV; Robert Viglasky, Hartswood Films; Fred Hayes/Disney+, Fox, PopTV; Bettina Strauss/Netflix; Nicole Rivelli/Amazon, Netflix, Frank Masi/Apple, Disney, Jasper Savage/Hulu; Diyah Pera/CW, What to Watch on Netflix Top 10 Rankings on November 10. Melvin never directed in Hollywood again, but did find work as an actor including films directed by Mario. Conversely, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song offers a more deliberate, albeit cynical, meditation on society’s racial double standards. “Progress,” they reply. would earn critical acclaim during its theatrical release, including a four star review from Roger Ebert, and would be nominated for a number of awards. Download the TV Guide app for iPhone, iPad and Android! Melvin Van Peebles said he made Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song , released in 1971, because he didn't much care for the way movies portrayed African Americans. A whole lot of stunting. The underlying “fight the establishment” subject matter of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was thus further imbued with the director’s own seething frustration and sense of defiance. Oh baby, we're back to some sweet, sweet blaxploitation! The movie went on to gross over $15 million in box office receipts–more than 100 times its production budget. Like many outsiders who take a chance in Hollywood, Melvin quickly realized that his politics were not welcome within the studio system and he embarked on a quest to make a film all about “getting the man’s foot outta your ass,” telling the story of the titular Sweetback, an orphan raised in a brothel who becomes a star in sex shows before being set up by corrupt cops for a murder he didn’t commit. On the surface, the film has all the extreme elements of the most cynical "Blaxploitation" movies, but Van, Peebles actually uses these elements in order to comment upon them. Nine days later, on March 31st, 1971, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song would open at the Circus Theater in Detroit and within five days would gross a staggering $45,534.00 – an all-time house record. There are few in the sub-genre of blaxploitation that are as highly regarded as Melvin Van Peebles' Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. The the film wouldn’t even earn $400,000.00 at the domestic box office, resulting in a commercial failure – the complete opposite of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’s performance in 1971. (Welcome to Videodrome. In addition to all the factoids and historical tidbits we've already discussed, we're keeping the blaxploitation train chuggin' along with 5 fun facts you (probably) don't know about Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Conversely, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song offers a more deliberate, albeit cynical, meditation on society’s racial double standards. The film is “dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man”, and with “the black community starring”. But the film succeeds as a cri de coeur, an. During the ensuing manhunt, we are introduced to a slew of disenfranchised city creatures, who collectively give voice to the speckled underbelly of American society. ), It’s safe to say that when Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was released in 1971, a lot of viewers were offended, a great many were thrilled and another healthy portion asked themselves “what the fuck just happened?”. Although this independent release didn't appear on Variety charts, it grossed more than $10 million. Maybe Mario and the studio should have stuck with their original title: How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass. Things really get moving when the grown up Sweetback (played by grown up Peebles), attacks two white cops and thwarts the savage beating of a young black suspect. And while it’s fair to claim that Sweet Sweetback had a strong influence on blaxploitation, how it deals with the actual theme of exploitation is sometimes mischaracterized. He chose instead to self-fund the production with the help of a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby. After making his first (and only) studio film, Watermelon Man (1970), Melvin van Peebles opted to self-finance Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song instead of taking a three-picture deal with Columbia Pictures. Finding Connections in Kieslowski’s “Three Colors: Red”, Disoriented Drives: Intimacy and Distance in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”. He has a very clear fondness (or even admiration) for his father, saying in his intro for the book’s most recent edition: “Melvin Van Peebles is many things at once – renaissance man, hustler, revolutionary, wise old sage, player, father, grandfather, friend, comrade, dramatist – and he’s layered like that proverbial onion revealing knowledge only on a “need to know” basis depending on your level and interest.”. And only two days later it would smash the house record at the Coronet Theater in Atlanta. Layer in musical orchestrations by Earth, Wind and Fire and you have a funkalicious black soul safari that sets the bar high for other films of its ilk. Obviously, this didn't happen, and probably never could. Keep track of your favorite shows and movies, across all your devices. On the other hand, the film is a masterpiece of low-budget, guerrilla style moviemaking. It's written, directed, photographed, scored by, and stars Melvin Van Peebles, who'd always wanted to be a filmmaker, went to France to do a. conventional film (STORY OF A THREE DAY PASS), came back to try his hand in Hollywood (WATERMELON MAN), and finally wound up here, an independent in full control of his product. SWEET SWEETBACK is not an easy film to admire: it's violent, even sadistic, obscene, frenzied, painful. Adapting his father’s book “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song: A Guerilla Filmmaking Manifesto” as well as serving as director and star (playing his father), to say the film was a passion project for Mario may be putting it lightly. However, the provocative social commentary is what sets the movie apart from anything that came before. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. The Brattle Film Foundation is a 501(c)3 non-profit, supported in part by a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency. “When did you folks start getting so interested in black folks, dead or alive?” Beetle, a pimp, asks the cops before they arrest Sweetback for a crime he didn’t commit. But that X rating didn’t keep it from becoming a smash it, ultimately grossing $15,000,000 on a (rumored) $500,000 budget. Part of Peebles’ genius lay in his use of incendiary marketing tactics to hype the film, including doing an early screening in a brothel and using the tagline “rated X by an all-white jury” after he was unable to attain an MPAA rating. was distributed domestically by Sony Pictures Classics – yet it still managed to capture a ragtag spirit. But as a result, Peebles’ quiet portrayal comes off a bit wooden and one-dimensional. The narrative is linear and relatively unimaginative. Disoriented Drives: Intimacy and Distance in Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”, TagsMario Van Peebles Melvin Van Peebles Sweet Sweetback Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. He must then go on the lamb in an urban Los Angeles that could have been lifted from an Iceberg Slim hallucination. SWEET SWEETBACK caused considerable controversy among Black commentators and critics, but it remains one of very few Black films from the 1970s to spring entirely from a Black artistic sensibility. The principal theme is how “the man” takes advantage of black people, best demonstrated by Sweetback’s status as the victim of police prejudice and his use of sexual favors for salvation. Neither will I “self apply” an “X” rating to my movie, if such a rating, is to be applicable to Black audiences, as called for by the Motion Pictures Code and Administration rules. But in Peebles’ vision, whites are not always comic book portraits of racist evil. He then goes on the run from the man. I'm not sure if I'm fully on-board with the frenzied, jagged, & kaleidoscopic style of Melvin Van Peebles, but one thing is for sure: Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a film that has a message to say about race relations in America, but it may take me a while to get to fully grasp what it is. Nine days later, on March 31st, 1971, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song would open at the Circus Theater in Detroit and within five days would gross a staggering $45,534.00 – an all-time house record. It carries the distinction of being included as part of the permanent collection of The Museum of Modern Art. There are both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ white characters, and it’s not just white folks exploiting black folks, as evidenced by the pimps and hustlers so quick to sell Sweetback (and a number of woman, both white and black) for sex. Odds are that if you’re making a low budget film now, you owe something to Melvin and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Cool. He runs for the rest of the film, finally escaping to Mexico. I charge that your film rating body has no right to tell the Black community what it may or may not see. In fact, what’s so unique about Sweet Sweetback’s cartoonish black aesthetic is that it was arguably the first of its kind; the one from which all “blaxploitation” films derived and must ultimately be compared.
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