Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song
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| Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster. |
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| Directed by | Melvin Van Peebles |
| Produced by | Melvin Van Peebles Jerry Gross |
| Written by | Melvin Van Peebles |
| Starring | The Black Community Brer Soul |
| Music by | Melvin Van Peebles |
| Cinematography | Bob Maxwell |
| Editing by | Melvin Van Peebles |
| Distributed by | Cinemation Industries |
| Release date(s) | April 23, 1971 |
| Running time | 97 minutes |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Watermelon Man |
| Followed by | Don't Play Us Cheap |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was a 1971 independent film written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles. It tells the picaresque story of a deprived black man on his flight from the white authority.
The film, funded and distributed outside of the Hollywood system, broke conventions with its visual style, as well as its content. It was a major success, and was credited by Variety with inventing the blaxploitation genre.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Plot
The film opens with the dedication, "Dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man," followed by the credit, "Starring: The Black Community." Then, the story begins:
A young orphan boy (played by Melvin's son, Mario Van Peebles) is taken in by the proprietor of a Los Angeles whorehouse in the 1940s. While working there as a towel boy, he loses his virginity (at a startlingly young age) to one of the whores; the women name him "Sweet Sweetback" in honor of his sexual prowess and gigantic penis.
The movie flashes forward to the 1970s, where Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), now an adult, works as a performer in the whorehouse, entertaining customers by having sex on stage. One night, a pair of police officers come in to speak to Sweetback's boss, Beetle. A black man turned up murdered, and there is pressure from blacks to bring in a suspect. The police ask permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime, and then release him a few days later for lack of evidence, in order to appease the black community. Beetle agrees, and the officers arrest Sweetback.
On the way to the police station, the officers arrest a young Black Panther. They handcuff him to Sweetback, but when the Panther mouths off to the officers, they un-handcuff him, take him out of the car, and beat him; in response, Sweetback gets out of the car and beats the officers into unconsciousness with the unlocked handcuff.
The remainder of the film chronicles Sweetback's flight through South Central L.A. (now South L.A.) towards the Mexican border. Highlights of his odyssey include:
- Sweetback is captured by the police for the murders of the cops, but escapes when a riot breaks out.
- A white man sympathetic to his cause agrees to switch clothes with him, allowing the usually velour clad Sweetback to blend in.
- The police find Sweetback's foster-father, a blind, illiterate old man who reveals that Sweetback's birth name is Leroy.
- Sweetback goes to a woman he knows who can cut his handcuffs off; she makes him pay her with sex. With his handcuffs off, Sweetback continues onward, only to be captured by an all-white chapter of the Hells Angels. The female members are impressed by the size of Sweetback's penis, and after he gives one of them multiple orgasms during sex, they help him get to the desert.
The film concludes in the desert, where the L.A. police send several hunting dogs after Sweetback. He makes it into the Rio Grande, where he kills the dogs and escapes into Mexico. Afterwards, Sweetback delivers a warning (via on-screen text) to white viewers: "Watch out - a baad assss nigger is coming to collect some dues."
The end of the film actually shocked black audiences as well, who had expected that Sweetback would, sooner or later, perish at the hands of the police. This was a common, even inevitable, fate of black men "on the run" in prior films and this is in large part the reason that film critics such as Roger Ebert state that this isn't an exploitation film.[1]
[edit] Pre-production
After Melvin Van Peebles had completed Watermelon Man for Columbia Pictures, he was offered a three-picture contract. While the deal was still up in the air, Van Peebles developed the story for Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song.
The initial idea for the film did not come clearly to him at first. One day, Van Peebles drove into the Mojave desert, turned off the highway, and drove over the rise of a hill. He parked the car, got out, and squatted down facing the sun. He decided that the film was going to be "about a brother getting the Man's foot out of his ass."[2][3]
Because no studio would finance the film, Van Peebles put his own money into the production, and shot it independently. Van Peebles wound up controlling ownership of the film.[3]
Several actors auditioned for the lead role of Sweetback, but told Van Peebles that they wouldn't do the film unless they were given more dialogue (the character of Sweetback only has six lines during the entire film), and Van Peebles ended up playing the part himself.[3]
[edit] Production
According to Van Peebles, on the first day of shooting, director of photography and head cameraman Bob Maxwell told him that he couldn't mix two different lights because he thought that the results wouldn't look good on film. Van Peebles told him to do it anyhow. When he saw the rushes, Maxwell was overjoyed, and Van Peebles didn't have that problem again during the shoot.[3]
The film was shot in 19 days. Because all of the actors were amateurs, and otherwise, Van Peebles would risk the castmembers coming back the next day with different haircuts or clothes, and so, he shot the film in what he called "globs," where he would shoot entire sequences at a time.[3]
Because Van Peebles couldn't afford a stunt man, he performed all of the stunts himself, which also included appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. At one point in the shoot, Van Peebles had to jump off a bridge. Bob Maxwell told him "Well, that's great, Mel, but let's do it again." Van Peebles ended up performing the stunt nine times.[3]
Van Peebles contracted gonorrhea when filming one of the many sex scenes, and successfully applied to the director's guild in order to get worker's compensation because he got "hurt on the job." Van Peebles used the money to buy more film.[3]
Since it was dangerous to try to make a film without the union, Van Peebles and several key crew members were armed. One day, Van Peebles went to look for his gun, and couldn't find it. Van Peebles found out that a female crew member had put it in the prop box.[3] While shooting a sequence with members of the Hells Angels, one of the bikers told Van Peebles that they wanted to leave. Van Peebles told them "You're paid until the scene is over." The biker took out a knife and started cleaning his fingernails with it. In response, Van Peebles snapped his fingers, and his crewmembers were standing there with rifles, and so the bikers stayed to shoot the scene.[3]
Van Peebles had gotten a permit to set a car on fire, but had gotten it on a Friday, and because of this, there wasn't time to have it filed on time before shooting the scene. When the scene was shot, a fire truck showed up. This ended up in the final cut of the film.[3]
Van Peebles was given a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the film. "Cosby didn't want an equity part," according to Van Peebles. "He just wanted his money back."[3]
[edit] Music
Since Van Peebles didn't have the money to hire a composer, Van Peebles wrote the music himself. However, he didn't know how to read or write music. Van Peebles numbered all of the keys on a piano so he could remember the melodies. The film's music was performed by the then-unknown group Earth, Wind & Fire. At the time, the entire band was living in a single apartment with hardly any food. Van Peebles' secretary was dating one of the bandmembers, and convinced him to contact them about performing the music for the film. Van Peebles projected scenes from the film as the band performed the music. The soundtrack album, released by Stax Records, became popular, and album sales helped promote the film.[3]
[edit] Editing
The film's fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were novel features for an American movie at the time, although it is likely that Van Peebles was influenced by the avant-garde films of Jean-Luc Godard, since he was living in Paris and studying to be a director during the mid-1960s.
Because Van Peebles had refused to submit the film to the MPAA, the film received an automatic X rating, and thus, the film was released with the tagline: "Rated X By An All-White Jury!"
[edit] Response
Critical response was generally positive. Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 67%.[4]
Huey P. Newton came out in full support of the film, devoting an entire issue of The Black Panther to the film's revolutionary implications.[2]
The film grossed $4,100,000 at the box office.[2] The film's success lead to the creation of the blaxploitation genre when Hollywood studios rushed out their own black cast action films, a majority of which were exploitation films made by white directors.
In 2004, Mario Van Peebles directed and starred as his father in BAADASSSSS!, a biopic about the making of Sweet Sweetback. The film was a critical and commercial success.
[edit] Alternative versions
The Region 2 DVD release from BFI Video has the opening sex sequences altered. 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."[5]
[edit] Notes
- ^ a b Roger Ebert (June 11, 2004). Review of Baadasssss!. Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on January 4, 2007.
- ^ a b c That's Blaxploitation!: Roots of the Baadasssss 'Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury). James, Darius. (ISBN 0312131925, 1995).
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Van Peebles, Melvin. The Real Deal: What It
Was...Is!. Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song DVD, Xenon Entertainment Group, 2003. ASIN: B0000714EY - ^ Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on January 4, 2007.
- ^ Review. DVD Beaver. Retrieved on January 4, 2007.
[edit] References
- Van Peebles, Melvin (1996). The Making of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Edinburgh, Payback Press, ISBN 0-86241-653-1.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
Films: The Story of a Three-Day Pass •Watermelon Man •Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song •Don't Play Us Cheap •Bellyful
Shorts: Pickup Men for Herrick •Sunlight •Cinq cent balles •Vroom Vroom Vroooom
With Mario Van Peebles: Identity Crisis •Panther •Gang in Blue
