Cast:
Melvin Van Peebles (Sweetback), Hubert Scales (Mu-Mu), Simon Chuckster ("Beetle"), John Dullaghan (Commissioner), with West Gale, Niva Rochelle, Rhetta Hughes (Old Girl Friend), Nick Ferrari, Ed Rue, and John Amos (Biker) Written and Directed by Melvin Van Peebles.
Review:
“I made the picture because I was tired of taking the Man's crap and of having him define who we were to us. Sick and tired of watching the parade of jigaboos, valets and tap-dancing cooks on the big screen, I felt we had the right to define who we were ourselves. I am most proud of the fact that I decided to do something about it.”
Well, what can you expect from a movie that was written, co-produced, scored, edited, directed by one man in Melvin Van Peebles? The Chicago native studied in literature at Ohio Wesleyan University, graduating with a bachelor's degree in the mid 1950s. He served in the United States Air Force almost immediately after graduation, doing so for three years serving as a navigator and bombardier in the Strategic Air Command. Afterwards, he moved to San Francisco and worked as a cable car gripman, where a passenger suggested for him to be a filmmaker (he also wrote during this time). His short films didn't attract Hollywood, but it did attract French favor, and he spent a variety of years there writing before his first feature film came with The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968), the story of an African American soldier stationed in France in an interracial relationship. The success of the film (made in France with French and English dialogue) inspired curiosity from Columbia Pictures, who hired him to direct a film for them with a script by Herman Raucher (the studio wanted to do the film, but only with a black director). Van Peebles did not enjoy the experience of what became Watermelon Man (1970) too much, considering that he wished to change the script from a satire of white liberal America to a black power movie. The movie was a hit, and Columbia offered Van Peebles a contract for three films. Van Peebles chose to do this film instead. A free spirit, Van Peebles directed seven films (one for television and one that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival before getting a video release) from 1968 to 2008; he also spent his time with work in the theater and trading on the floor of the American Stock Exchange. Van Peebles died at the age of 89 in 2021; his son Mario became an actor and director himself, and he made a film depicting the struggle of making Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song with the 2003 biodrama Baadasssss! Incidentally, Mario had played a younger version of the title character in the 1971 film and then he starred as his father in this film.
Technically, this is the first "blaxploitation" film, because it came out a few months before the release of Shaft. Both films ended up with their own type of cultural impact, with this film being cited as "required viewing" for members of the Black Panther Party (as decreed by its founder Huey Newton). The musical group Earth, Wind, and Fire was behind the music of this film, as composed by Van Peebles, who released the soundtrack months before the film to attract attention. I can't really call it the father of that genre, because Cotton Comes to Harlem was released a year before it, and Sweetback probably shares more similarities to Billy Jack (released the same year as this and self-distributed by its title star to roaring success) more than the other big 1971 hit Shaft, in that I feel it is more of an offbeat fable of what Van Peebles envisions empowerment to be. Think about it: both Billy Jack and Sweetback involve a lead character who speaks lightly, both involve characters spurred to action by seeing someone get assaulted (whether hippies or activists), both movies involve a family member being cast for things usually not done in movies (one had their wife play a character that goes through a sexual assault, the other casted their son as a younger version of the title character being depicted as having their way with a prostitute), and both have a lead trying to get their way across an oppressive authority that leads to some sort of moral victory (i.e. "The Man" doesn't kill them). A series of vignettes is either a series of loose connections with varying levels of filmmaking success or a series of vignettes that make a jumbled mess: it is up to the viewer to decide what the hell they are watching. It is a fragmented, odd, and incendiary movie that you have to figure out what edges work out best for 97 minutes. It is a movie where a man got gonorrhea from doing a sex scene and used it as a way to get compensation from the Directors Guild for being "hurt on the job" before needing a personal loan from a once-famous comedian to keep the movie rolling, which was shot in under three weeks. The camerawork is a mixture of hand-held shots, montages, split-screen effects that all goes for a film "dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man". The most striking scene is probably the one that gets things started in loose plotting: our passive lead not being able to take it anymore when he sees (white) cops taking an activist out of the car to beat. Well, that or the scene where he argues for the activist to be taken by motorcycle rather than him because of the importance of the activist for the future. The cops taking things out on a random black man sleeping with a white woman regardless of how much he looks like Sweetback is also another striking scene whether for 1971 or 2023.
So yes, the movie is a success in terms of delivering perspective that isn't numbingly hypocritical, but that doesn't mean I have to call it a great classic. The Spook Who Sat by the Door, released three years later, crafted a far more interesting story of taking back the system in perspective (which incidentally was a movie suppressed by the studio behind it), but I digress. Granted, the criticisms of the film lie similar to ones made at films labeled part of the "blaxploitation" genre when it comes to presenting African Americans in stereotypes. But you know, there is one thing to mention when it comes to film and giving it a spotlight: if it is consistent enough for me, it is a winner all the way. The only one who should judge a film for themselves when it comes to spreading "ideas" is the viewer, not others trying to allege a moral high ground in authority (incidentally, this argument for worthwhile action films works just as well for horror films, since I guess ratings boards and family groups love to pair up). With that in mind, Melvin Van Peebles made a picaresque film that might as well pass for fable in the best way possible for what it means to him to be a Black man in America, one that doesn't stand passively when someone gets shelled, and one that finds the importance of not letting anything stand in the way of who they are. Whether thought of as a revolutionary classic or not, the world was left a better place with films such as this rather than left out in the cold. It might grow on you the more you watch it, but the impact is still there to talk about when it comes to Black cinema.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
Next Time: Trouble Man (1972).
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