Melvin Van Peebles's Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is one of the prime offenders herein. Sure, it's a "landmark film," arguably "the first real independent movie," the film that spawned "Blaxploitation," etc, etc, etc. Is it any good? I couldn't say; I've never bothered to watch the damn thing. Like, I'm sure Booker T. Washington wrote some "important" shit, but give me Iceberg Slim instead, and keep me entertained, if not informed. Baadasssss! is a loving portrait of Melvin and the making of SSBS courtesy Melvin's son Mario, who appeared in the original movie and seems to have spent his career trying to prove his own legitimacy, be it as legitimately Black (New Jack City), legitimately talented (Rappin'?!), or legitimately the fulfillment of his dad's unfinished business (with this one here). Baadasssss! is certainly the most personal and probably the best movie Mario Van Peebles will ever make, but there is a sense of compromise to it that makes it somehow quite a bit less cool than it ought to be. Perhaps the apologetic nature of trumpeting his own dad's achievements smacks of desperation; perhaps it's that Mario wasn't sure whether this was to be an admiring portrait of a tortured artist or a cathartic dissection of his own childhood trauma. Whatever it is, the movie is a wild ride, always engaging, but it comes up short in the end. The principal misstep is utilizing a pseudo-documentary style for contextual framing; with this we're trotted down the usual newsreel footage of the turbulent 60s and cinematic racism, which is about as effective at this point as showing the goddamned Moon landing to set the stage. Worse, though, is that Mario has his actors portraying real people, talking directly to the camera as though they are those real people. This approach sunk Prefontaine in a big way, and almost does the same trick with Baadasssss! (especially since Mario undoes his own attempted magic by showing the real people over the end credits, making you wonder why he didn't just use them throughout). Fortunately, the actual content of the story is sufficiently amazing that you have to overlook the errant directorial judgment and just go along for the ride. As Melvin struggles to realize his vision of a truly populist, gritty, and ultimately real movie, against all odds, you get a distinct sense for how different things were 35 years ago, and begin to yearn for the time when a creative mind with an indefatigable spirit could make something great, and have success with it. Nowadays, even the indie film world is so watered down that what is foisted upon us is either something that may as well be a studio project, or a worthless piece of crap. Whatever it is, Sweet Sweetback was neither of these things. Despite some big reservations about the film as a whole, I had fun watching Baadasssss!, especially for the performances (principally T.K. Carter as a great Bill Cosby, and small contributions from Vincent Schiavelli and Paul Rodriguez, who seems to make a lot more sense nowadays). Ultimately, this is well worth a look—it's frequently exciting, sometimes very sexy, often quite amusing, and it is certainly a story that all struggling artists should see parts of themselves reflected in. It didn't make me want to go out and finally get Sweet Sweetback over with, but what can I say, I am a stubborn ass that way.
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