Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1971 • United States
Starring Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert Scales
A landmark of Black and American independent cinema that would send shock waves through the culture, SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG was Melvin Van Peebles’s second feature film, after he walked away from a contract with Columbia in order to make his next film on his own terms. Acting as producer, director, writer, composer, editor, and star, Van Peebles created the prototype for what Hollywood would eventually co-opt and make into the blaxploitation hero: a taciturn, perpetually blank-faced performer in a sex show, who, when he’s pushed too far by a pair of racist cops looking to frame him for a crime he didn’t commit, goes on the run through a lawless underground of bikers, revolutionaries, sex workers, and hippies in a kill-or-be-killed quest for liberation from white oppression. SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG’s incendiary politics are matched by Van Peebles’s revolutionary style, in which jagged jump cuts, kaleidoscopic superimpositions, and psychedelic sound design come together in a sustained howl of rage and defiance.
This film contains scenes that depict sexual activity, including some involving underage participants. Viewer discretion is advised.
Up Next in Microbudget Movies
-
Je tu il elle
Directed by Chantal Akerman • 1975 • France
Starring Chantal Akerman, Niels Arestrup, Claire WauthionChantal Akerman’s first narrative feature is a startlingly vulnerable exploration of alienation and the search for connection. In a performance at once daringly exposed and enigmatic, Akerman pl...
-
Eraserhead
Directed by David Lynch • 1977 • United States
Starring Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, Judith Anna RobertsDavid Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, ERASERHEAD, is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. With its mesmerizing black-and-white photography by Frederick El...
-
Permanent Vacation
Directed by Jim Jarmusch • 1980 • United States
Starring Chris Parker, Sara Driver, John LurieJim Jarmusch’s first feature displays the first hints of the deadpan, minimalist-cool style that he would refine in his breakthrough STRANGER THAN PARADISE. Young, alienated hipster Aloysius Christophe...
