The Unseen Movie Review

Baadasssss!

Films about films have a long and often noble tradition in Hollywood, from Charlie Chaplin’s 1916 short Behind the Screen via Sunset Boulevard, The Player and even last year’s The Aviator. The old adage for aspiring novelists to “write about what you know” can apply just as well to filmmakers. They know Hollywood and the movie business inside out, and in this particular genre there have been far more hits than misses. Strike this one up as another definite hit – in terms of style, humour, interest and entertainment, if not, thanks to its relatively limited release, box-office takings.

As the flower power of the 1960s raged, the black writer/director Melvin Van Peebles had a dream – a film with an all-black cast, dealing with all-black subjects. But, less than a decade after the Civil Rights movement had finally secured true emancipation for the African American population, racism and snobbery in America was still such that such a film was considered not only likely to be a commercial failure, but potentially dangerous for any mainstream studio to be finance.

On point of principle as much as through conviction that his screenplay would be a success, Van Peebles decided to self-finance, scraping together – with the aid of a $50,000 loan from rising black TV star Bill Cosby – just enough money to bring his dream to life. Taking on directorial duties as well as the lead role, Van Peebles created the first true Blaxploitation movie, one of the defining films of the 70s that would be described in certain quarters as “the black Citizen Kane”. It grossed over $10 million, and spawned countless imitators – including the likes of Quentin Tarantino’s Jackie Brown.

But Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’s importance was not just for its story – black/white racial tension and police brutality amongst the counterculture’s rejects, with a liberal dosing of sex and swearing – but for the way in which it was made. In the first place it was practically unheard of to self-finance a movie, but it was certainly unheard of to make a movie in this way – with an almost entirely amateur cast and crew scrimping, scrounging and stealing anything it took to get the thing made. It is a genuinely fascinating story of perseverance, immorality and inspiration, and has already been the subject of a bestselling making of book – also written by Van Peebles.

Now, over three decades after Sweetback hit theatres in 1971, Van Peebles’ son Mario – the director of another defining black film, the “gangsta” classic New Jack City – has managed to bring the story of his father’s struggle to make his masterpiece to the screen. Just like Dad, he writes, directs and stars – as his father. What he has also managed to do is make a truly superb docudrama-cum-biopic which actually manages to be even better than the film it is about.

For anyone interested in the inventiveness of the counterculture rebels on the fringe of the 1970s, the history of Hollywood or the Civil Rights movement, this is a must-see. For the rest, it’s a funny, fascinating and sympathetic movie which somehow, despite son playing father, manages to avoid pulling any punches about some of the more sordid details.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM