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BAADASSSSS!
by Peter Sobczynski

June 11, 2004

1/2 (out of 4 stars)

FILM CREDITS: Written by Mario Van Peebles & Dennis Haggerty. Directed by Mario Van Peebles. Starring Mario Van Peebles, Joy Bryant, T.K. Carter, David Alan Grier and Nia Long R

Contrary to popular belief, independent American filmmakers did not just suddenly emerge during the 1980’s with the advent of Sundance-that was merely the moment when the media decided to latch onto the movement as the next big thing. For decades prior, there had been any number of mavericks who put everything they had on the line in order to put their unique visions on the big screen. One of the most notorious was Melvin Van Peebles, the African-American Renaissance man (besides working in films in nearly every imaginable capacity, he was also a painter, a playwright, an author, an officer in the US Air Force and the first black commodities trader) who shocked Hollywood by making one popular film (the comedy "Watermelon Man", in which a white bigot magically turned black overnight) and then, rather than follow it up with another film along those lines, decided to turn his back on the studios in order to finance and produce a low-budget film in which a black radical went up against a corrupt white society-and won! That film, 1971’s "Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song", eventually became a enormous success and was a key influence on the then-emerging blaxsploitation genre. The struggles that he went through in producing the film have now resulted in "Baadasssss!", a docu-drama directed by Van Peebles’s son Mario (who also plays Melvin) so fascinating that they make for a film that is actually better than the film that inspired it.

And there were struggles a-plenty, starting with the simple fact that no studio in Hollywood in 1971 would dare finance such a film. Melvin’s attempts to find financing lead him to a variety of questionable sources-one aging star (Adam West) seems agreeable as long as Melvin does something for him, another shies away after Melvin beats him at a rope-climbing contest ("I was the first n----- in history who hung himself") and a third is all set to cough up the money when he is caught in a drug bust-before he winds up essentially putting up his own money. This means that he cannot afford a union crew (or even much of a crew period) and in order to prevent filming from being shut down, he schedules all of the sex scenes for the first days of filming in order to convince union reps that he is actually shooting a porno film. One of those scenes was the infamous opening depicting the 13-year-old version of Sweetback graphically losing his virginity; with no one else to turn to, he enlists his own son Mario to make a memorable film debut.

Some of these incidents were amusing enough but others were far more serious. A real loaded gun, taken from one of the background extras, is accidentally put away with the other prop guns. Several members of the racially mixed crew are arrested by police who assume that the only way that a group of blacks and hippies could get their hands on film equipment is if they stole it. At a key point, the money runs out and it looks like all the work is doomed until an unlikely financial angel saves the day. The problems don’t end even when the production is completed; the MPAA slaps it with an "X" rating (which Van Peebles wittily turned into an asset by advertising the film as being "rated X by an all-white jury") and the only company he can convince to distribute the picture does so initially in a grand total of two theaters-one in Atlanta and one in Detroit that specialized in horror triple-bills.

Seen today, "Sweet Sweetback" is little more than a curious period piece-much of the impact that it had 30-odd years ago is gone and a lot of the then-trendy visual stylings (loads of split-screens and solarized effects) date the film even more than the fashions. However, by being one of the first examples of radical black culture invading the entertainment world, the film paved the way for not only countless films and filmmakers but would also prove to be an influence on the world of rap and by using the soundtrack (recorded by the then-unknown Earth, Wind and Fire, who happened to have a member dating one of the crew) as a way to promote the film, it also showed Hollywood a new and lucrative way to market their films. Aside from being fast, funny and enormously entertaining, one of the most important things about "Baadasssss!" is the way that Mario Van Peebles reminds us of just how significant his father’s work was; not only has he made a good film but he has made one that makes the original seem as vital today as it did back in 1971.

Nowadays, the American independent film scene has become as complacent as the studio scene that it was supposed to supplant; there are plenty of indie filmmakers out there but many of their creations seem inspired less by a desire to tell a personal story and more by a desire to tell a story that Miramax will overpay for at Sundance. "Baadasssss!" is a reminder that there was a time when independent filmmaking was just that and such films were made because certain people had to make them, no matter what the personal or professional cost. Hopefully, the example set forth in "Baadasssss!" will inspire new filmmakers to take similar risks; if they do, the results could be quite extraordinary
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-- PETER SOBCZYNSKI

Copyright © 2004 Peter Sobczynski
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While the views expressed by Peter Sobczynski do not necessarily reflect the views of Criticdoctor.com, the Critic Doctor will occasionally examine Mr. Sobczynski's film reviews to bring forth an honest examination of those views expressed.