MELVIN VAN PEEBLES (1932)

BLAXPLOITATION

Writer, director, musician, singer, playwright and novelist, Melvin Van Peebles is the very definition of the journeyman artist, and also made one of the most searing portraits of racial division in the United States.

Born in Chicago in 1932, after graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University, Van Peebles joined the US Air Force and was based for a time in Germany, where he met his wife, Maria Marx. From there, the couple moved to Mexico, had a son (actor and filmmaker Mario), and Van Peebles took up painting. They then moved to San Francisco, where Van Peebles was employed as a cable car operator. This inspired him to compose a photo-essay based on his experiences, which eventually became his first book, The Big Heart (1957). It was while working on cable cars that a passenger suggested he should become a filmmaker.

Hollywood showed little interest in the films of an African American director, but contacts in Europe were more positive and Van Peebles moved to Amsterdam to work for the Dutch National Theatre. It was there that his marriage imploded and his family returned to the United States. He received an invitation from the prestigious Cinématèque Française to show his films in Paris, and while there he began to focus his writing on representing contemporary ghetto life. His development of Sprechgesang – a style of delivery somewhere between speaking and singing – resulted in his debut album Brer Soul, which has been a significant influence on hip-hop and rap music. He also adapted his play La Permission into his debut film The Story of a Three-Day Pass (1968), which finally attracted the attention of Hollywood.

Van Peebles’ first feature was Watermelon Man (1970), about a white man who wakes up black and thereafter witnesses his life falling apart. But it was his self-funded, singularly independent Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) that defined his career. A provocative exploration of one man’s encounters with white authority, it proved to be incendiary politically and made stars out of the then-unknown Earth, Wind & Fire, who performed Van Peebles’ score. The film was also responsible for launching the Blaxploitation genre: films about black characters and featuring a predominantly black cast.

Baadasssss!, the making of Sweet Sweetback, was directed by Mario Van Peebles in 2003 and highlighted the cultural and political importance of the film and his father’s place as one of the most significant African American directors since Oscar Micheaux. Van Peebles senior continues to make films, still produces music and has recently moved into video art.