Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)

Synopsis: Putting black cinema on the map and ushering in the legendary Blaxploitation genre of the 1970s, Melvin Van Peebles's SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG is a thrilling work of entertainment as well as a historically and ideologically significant essay on the issue of race. The film tells the... Putting black cinema on the map and ushering in the legendary Blaxploitation genre of the 1970s, Melvin Van Peebles's SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG is a thrilling work of entertainment as well as a historically and ideologically significant essay on the issue of race. The film tells the story of Sweetback (Van Peebles), an apolitical black sex performer who becomes a reluctant picaresque hero when he kills the two white policemen who brutalized a young prisoner for racist reasons. On the run to Mexico, Sweetback encounters all manner of provocatively stereotypical characters, including a shower-capped ghetto thug who won't help him, a hypocritical Baptist preacher, and, of course, a host of women who can't get enough of his supercharged sexuality. Working overtime as producer, editor, and co-composer (along with Earth, Wind and Fire), Van Peebles delivers a work that is the true definition of an independent film. Incorporating striking cinematic techniques into his production--including split screens, freeze-frames, and use of film negatives--he single-handedly created a new cinematic genre, proving that true innovation comes from individual human spirit, not assembly-line studio efforts. [More]