SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG

US, 1971, 97 minutes. Colour.
Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales.
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song has historical significance in cinema.

It was the work (written, directed, produced, edited, music composed by and starring Melvin Van Peebles). Van Peebles had spent some time in France, influenced by the New Wave film-makers and had made Story of a One Day Pass which won some awards.

However, he returned to the United States and made Watermelon Man, something of a mainstream film, about a black man passing as white. He then made Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song without the benefit of studio support.

The film is very difficult to watch. Made on a low budget, many of the scenes filmed at night, hand-held camerawork, strange editing, a mixture of stretching of time, time insertions, verbal ramblings, it is not easy to give full attention to or to understand.

The narrative is basic. Sweetback is a Los Angeles black gigolo, arrested and giving himself as a possible suspect for a crime but reacting when the police bash a Black Panther. He attacks the police – and the rest of the film shows him on the run. He still performs with the woman despite his grotesque condition.

The film was important as being made by a black director at the beginning of the 1970s – leading the way, eventually, for other black directors, especially in the 1990s including his son Mario Van Peebles.

The film is a blunt look at African Americans, harsh conditions, American racism and brutality of the period – only a few years after the march on Washington and issues of civil rights. Van Peebles is always confronting in his language, presentation of characters, explicit presentation of sexuality and nudity, the violence that pervaded this story. To that extent, audiences will find it an exercise in watching film-making rather than an entertainment.

In 2003, Mario Van Peebles made a film about the making of this film, Baadasssss. He portrays his father in the film.

1. The impact of the film? In its time? Controversy in its time? Being banned in several countries? Changing attitudes over the decades? Eventual release? The role of Melvin Van Peebles, his work in France, his film-making, guerrilla film-making on the streets for this film? His contribution in terms of writing, directing, producing, composing, starring, editing?

2. The 1970s, the blacksploitation films that were to follow? Presentation of sex and violence? The clashes between black and white Americans?

3. The title, its tone, its expectations?

4. Issues of sexuality, Sweetback as a boy, as an adult, his prowess, his public, relationship with women? In himself, his type, the presentation of the symbolic stud, the symbolic black man – compared with the reality?

5. The presentation of violence, witnessing violence, used by black and white, bashings, stabbings, people on the run?

6. The story of a black man on the run, the people that he encountered, the landscapes he passed through, the camerawork, the relentless chase, suffering and violence, thirst, sexual encounters? His being mistakenly bashed?

7. The picture of the white police, watching the suspects, the bashings, the boss, press and conferences, the attitudes, the chase, the motivations?

8. The range of black Americans, men, women, children, sexual background?

9. African American and their religious background – and the presentation of Jesus Saves in this context?

10. The American cities, their life?

11. The reverse racism, black against white?

12. The end, the survival of the black man, brothers?