Melvin Van Peebles, influential director, actor and writer, dies at 89
He was not on the list.
Melvin Van Peebles, the influential filmmaker behind "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," and father of director and actor Mario Van Peebles, has died. He was 89.
"Dad knew that Black images matter," Mario Van Peebles said in a statement from the Criterion Collection. "If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth? We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer's mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people."
"Sweet Sweetback" will be screened at the New York Film Festival this week for a 50th anniversary tribute. "In an unparalleled career distinguished by relentless innovation, boundless curiosity and spiritual empathy, Melvin Van Peebles made an indelible mark on the international cultural landscape through his films, novels, plays and music," the Criterion Collection said.
Melvin and Mario Van Peebles teamed on the 1989 film "Identity Crisis," with Melvin directing and Mario scripting and starring as a rapper possessed by the soul of a dead fashion designer. Melvin appeared in the 1993 Mario Van Peebles-directed "Posse," in which Mario also starred, as well as in Mario's Black Panther drama "Panther" (1995), with Melvin adapting the script from his own novel, the Mario Van Peebles-directed "Love Kills (1998) and the Mario-directed "Redemption Road" (2010).
Melvin Van Peebles also acted in the work of others, appearing in the 1991 feature comedy "True Identity"; Reginald Hudlin's Eddie Murphy vehicle "Boomerang" (1992); big-budget Arnold Schwarzenegger action film "Last Action Hero" (1993); Charlie Sheen action film "Terminal Velocity" (1994); 2003 comedy "The Hebrew Hammer," in which Melvin reprised the role of Sweetback and Mario also appeared; and Tina Gordon Chism's 2013 romantic comedy "Peeples," in which he played Grandpa Peeples.
In 1988 Mario Van Peebles starred in the brief NBC sitcom "Sonny Spoon," about a private detective, in which his father was also a series regular as the private eye's bar-owning father. On TV he also made guest appearances on series including "In the Heat of the Night," "Dream On," "Living Single" and "Homicide: Life on the Street."
In "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," which Van Peebles wrote and directed, dedicating the film to "all of the Black brothers and sisters who have had enough of the Man," Van Peebles starred as the title character, an orphan — portrayed as a child by Van Peebles' son Mario — raised in a California bordello, where he does menial tasks and grows up to appear in live sex shows there; one day he's told to ride along with two crooked detectives, who collect protection money from the whorehouse and elsewhere, and they end up beating a Black militant. Sweetback finally decides he's had enough and attacks the cops, saving the Black militant; from that point the film focuses on Sweetback's flight to the Mexican border.
Van Peebles employed a variety of interesting effects, including a great deal of hand-held work "to help express the paranoid nightmare that the fugitive's life had become," according to the book "The 50 Most Influential Black Films: A Celebration of African-American Talent, Determination, and Creativity."
Produced on a total budget of $500,000, "Sweetback" saw box office of $10 million, according to "The 50 Most Influential Black Films"; a few months after, the studio-made, Gordon Parks-directed "Shaft," starring Richard Roundtree, was released and became a significant success.
"Sweetback" and "Shaft," together with the following year's "Superfly," directed by Gordon Parks Jr., are generally regarded as having together given birth to the Blaxploitation genre.
Van Peebles, however, was critical of many Blaxploitation films for being devoid of political content.
Columbia had offered Van Peebles a three-picture contract on the strength of his previous film "Watermelon Man," but neither Columbia nor any other other studio would finance the film project that would become "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," so he did so himself; Bill Cosby loaned him $50,000 to complete the project.
The soundtrack to the film, featuring Earth, Wind & Fire, was released prior to the film itself in order to generate publicity and word of mouth.
When "Sweetback" drew an X rating from the MPAA, Van Peebles cleverly transformed this significant hindrance to any film's box office prospects into an advertising tagline that played well with his target audience — "Rated X by an all white jury" — and declared, "Should the rest of the community submit to your censorship that is its business, but White standards shall no longer be imposed on the Black community."
"Sweetback" drew a mixed critical response. The New York Times wrote a devastating review upon its release, but in a 1995 reappraisal, Stephen Holden wrote, "This sulphurous nightmare of racial paranoia and revenge eclipses even 'Reservoir Dogs' in evoking a world of infinite seaminess, injustice and cruelty. Mr. Van Peebles's film was not only the granddaddy of (Blaxploitation films) but also the most innovative and politically inflammatory."
In 2003 Mario Van Peebles directed the film "Baadasssss!," which was both a documentary and an homage to his father's "Sweetback."
Year Film
1957 Three Pickup Men for Herrick
1961 Sunlight Yes Yes Yes Yes Short
1961 Cinq cent balles
1967 The Story of a Three-Day Pass (also known as La Permission) from his novel La Permission
1969 Slogan Directed by Pierre Grimblat.
1970 Watermelon Man
1971 Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
1973 Don't Play Us Cheap - from his book Harlem Party and stage musical Don't Play Us Cheap
1976 Just an Old Sweet Song (also known as Down Home) made for television; screenwriter and theme song
1977 Greased Lightning
1981 The Sophisticated Gents - made for television; actor, screenwriter, song "Greased Lightning" and producer
1987 The Day They Came to Arrest the Book - made for television; screenwriter
1989 Identity Crisis
1995 Panther
Yes No Yes No based on his novel Panther, screenwriter, actor and producer
1996 Vroom Vroom Vroooom - segment from Tales of Erotica, also known as Erotic Tales. Also Editor
1996 Gang in Blue Co-director and also actor
2000 Le Conte du ventre plein (also known as Bellyful) -Delegate Producer
2008 Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha
2012 Lilly Done the Zampoughi Every Time I Pulled Her Coattail
Other writing credits
Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death (1971) Broadway musical book and score
Melvin Van Peebles' Classified X (Mark Daniels, 1998) documentary; screenwriter, actor and executive producer
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song: The Musical (2008) writer, singer
Unmitigated Truth: Life, a Lavatory, Loves, and Ladies (2009) writer, performer
As himself
Unstoppable (2005)
How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (2005)
Other acting-only credits
O.C. and Stiggs (1987) as Bob 'Wino Bob'
Jaws: The Revenge (1987) as Mr. Witherspoon
Taking Care of Terrific (1987) (television film) as 'Hawk'
Sonny Spoon (1988) (television series) as Mel Spoon
Boomerang (1992) as Editor
Posse (1993) as Joe 'Papa Joe'
Terminal Velocity (1994) as Noble
Fist of the North Star (1995) as Asher
Living Single (1996) as Warner Devant
The Shining (1997) (miniseries) as Dick Hallorann
The Hebrew Hammer (2003) as Sweetback
BlacKout (2007) as George
Redemption Road (2010) as Elmo
We the Party (2012) as 'Big D'
Armed (2018) as Grandpa V
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