Melvin Van Peebles, fiercely independent filmmaker, dies at 89
Source: Washington Post
Obituaries
Melvin Van Peebles, fiercely independent filmmaker, dies at 89
By Adam Bernstein
Today at 5:56 p.m. EDT
Melvin Van Peebles, whose low-budget 1971 phenomenon, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" -- an X-rated film about a Black revolutionary's survival on the run -- proved a milestone of independent and African American cinema, died Sept. 21 at his home in Manhattan. He was 89.
His family and the Criterion Collection announced the death but did not provide a cause. (1)
Over a six-decade career, Mr. Van Peebles continually reinvented himself: as an Air Force officer, a San Francisco cable-car gripman (operator), a self-taught film auteur, a novelist in English and French, a Tony Award-nominated playwright and composer, an Emmy Award-winning TV writer, a spoken-word artist, and, for a spell in the 1980s, the only Black floor trader on the American Stock Exchange.
Throughout his life, Mr. Van Peebles was propelled and defined by his boundless self-confidence and bravado. As a young man -- lacking money, connections and institutional support -- he practically willed himself into recognition as a visual artist.
His legacy rested largely on "Sweetback," for which he served as writer, director, producer, composer, stuntman and star. After finding no other Black actor in Hollywood willing to risk his image on such a role, he cast himself as the title character -- a sex-show stud who beats up two racist police officers and spends the rest of the film politically radicalized, an unlikely hero on a righteous odyssey.
Made on a shoestring budget of $500,000, "Sweetback" opened in two Black-neighborhood theaters, one in Detroit and the other in Atlanta. It quickly set box-office records and expanded its reach to other theaters, grossing more than $10 million that year on its way to becoming one of the most lucrative independent films in history.
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By Adam Bernstein
Adam Bernstein has spent his career putting the "post" in The Washington Post, first as an obituary writer and then as editor. The American Society of Newspaper Editors recognized Bernsteins ability to exhume the small details and anecdotes that get at the essence of the person. He joined The Post in 1999. Twitter https://twitter.com/bernsteinobits
(1)
Link to tweet
(2) https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/melvin-van-peebles-dead/2021/09/22/b0af14ca-ca9b-11ea-91f1-28aca4d833a0_story.html
rpannier
(24,304 posts)TygrBright
(20,733 posts)Wow.
Just, wow.
Of course, I heard very little about him during his lifetime because the media and particularly the entertainment press is SO EFFING RACIST.
Which contributes nicely to white comfort, but I increasingly resent the ignorance it perpetuates.
Homage, Sir, for a life gloriously lived.
appreciatively,
Bright
Demovictory9
(32,324 posts)Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)May your legacy live through all the wonderful, eventful centuries.
reACTIONary
(5,749 posts)In whitese, Mr. Van Peebles joked to Newsday, it would be called The Ballad of the Indomitable Sweetback.
IrishAfricanAmerican
(3,805 posts)DinahMoeHum
(21,737 posts). . .from 2005 titled: How To Eat Your Watermelon In White Company (And Enjoy It)
Here's a trailer:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452632/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
A quote from the film:
"I didn't see the type of things I wanted to see, so I did it myself"
Anon-C
(3,430 posts)DFW
(54,055 posts)I remember when "Sweetback" first came out, and my two roomies at college were so anxious to see it, and they made sure I came with them. They knew all about it already, of course, where I had never heard of it. They had told me it would be a film like no other we had ever seen, and they were SO right. I couldn't believe my eyes when ten or so years later, I read that MVP had become a trader on the NYSE. This was the same guy who had made "Sweetback?" But he just was an eternally charged battery of intellectual curiosity, and wanted to try his hand at all different sorts of things with sort of a "why CAN'T I do that?" attitude.
LeftInTX
(24,560 posts)Maybe because I get confused with his son.
Fascinating obituary. Never got to see Sweetback. Kept looking for it online years ago, but to no avail. Now that's distributed by Criterion Collection, the price is probably sky high.
Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin
(107,111 posts)oasis
(49,152 posts)ailsagirl
(22,837 posts)Quite simply, it blew my mind.
Rest In Peace, MVP
electric_blue68
(14,621 posts)BumRushDaShow
(127,312 posts)but this is a big loss of someone who was an innovator in terms of subject matter and film directing, during the era in which he was operating. Between his "Sweet Sweetback..." and "Watermelon Man" (starring Godfrey Cambridge), he basically managed to reflect the politics of the day (including through a dramedy format for the latter film) in what could probably be considered an unfiltered and often raw way.
He does leave his son as the next generation in the genre as a filmmaker and actor himself.
R.I.P. and thank you for your contributions.