Black History Month: African American Auteurs in Cinema
by t.sterling
Mario & Melvin Van Peebles, 1995, photo property of Gramercy Pictures
African American filmmakers have come a long way from the humble beginnings back in the fast and funky days of the 70s. Being a fan of the old black and white classics, I can’t help but notice how most movies lack Black actors, and even more scarce — or rather, non-existent — are Black directors.
Happy when I did see African Americans in old films, my favorite is Dooley Wilson as “Sam” in the all time classic (and one of my personal favorites) Casablanca. I still have yet to put “As Time Goes By” on my iPod. As for the movie, believe the hype: it’s great.
Favorites aside, today, I’m here to talk about African American auteurs — something I aspire to be one day when I grow up. I would start the AAA club, but the AAA towing and insurance company have already pulled that card. Maybe I’ll throw in some adjectives like “Amazing”, or maybe even “in America.” Hence, it would be called the AAAAA club — spoken aloud as “the Quintuple A Club.” I’ll work on it and get back to you.
Technically, according to the dictionary somewhere under my bed, “auteur” is a fancy French term for “author.” They also have “croissant” which is a fancy way of saying deliciously flaky.
In addition to the French, I’ve also heard many American writer/directors being hailed as auteurs such as Woody Allen and Quentin Tarantino.
As for my own definition, I’d say an auteur is a filmmaker who has near complete control over his or her project. Specifically wearing the writer/director hat and occasionally starring in his or her own movie.
For the month of February, to celebrate Black History month, I will be writing about Black auteurs in American Cinema. We’ll start this week with Melvin Van Peebles.
Melvin Van Peebles
Some may call him the Granddaddy of Blaxploitation films, which is the term used to classify movies made by Black people for Black people. Joining the words “black” and “exploitation,” the films exploit Black urban culture for profit, feeding into stereotypes about African Americans. Dramatic and action-packed, the films were usually low-budget and feature pimps, drug dealers, on-the-edge rogue cops, detectives, or just your average vengeful brotha or sista all against the Man. Think Shaft, Super Fly, Foxy Brown, and Black Caesar to name a few.
Before those legendary tales came Melvin’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. In my honest opinion, this movie was boring. The extra S’s didn’t do it for me. I suggest watching the film by Mario, Melvin Van Peebles’s son, The Story Behind Baadasssss!: The Birth of Black Cinema. This is a movie about the making of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Sometimes, the telling of the story being told is more interesting than the story itself. Follow me? Good.
The auteurism (apparently that isn’t a word, per the dictionary, but let’s roll with it) comes into play because both father Melvin and son Mario are writers, directors, and lead actors in their films.
Mario is actually in his father Melvin’s movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song acting in a very controversial scene. What am I saying? For it’s time, this movie was the epitome of controversial! It’s still controversial! The character of young Sweet Sweetback, Mario as a young boy, does some pretty shocking sexual things, as does the man Sweet Sweetback, played by Melvin. Well, it’s not as shocking anymore to see a Black man with a White woman or cops being shot… but like I said, at the time, this got people riled up and Mario was just a kid. The movie was originally rated X — that gives you an idea of who went to see it, or who was allowed to see it. This is why you should check out Mario’s documentary film to see how and why this movie is so important to Black cinema and how it affected Black people who went to see it.
Melvin Van Peebles started generation one of African American cinema and laid down the tracks of making movies by the people for the people. Solid. [Throws fist in the air.]
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“Posse” is also an awesome film, with an amazing star-studded cast. Isaac Hayes, Pam Grier, Nipsey Russell, Woody Strode, on and on . . . and, of course, father and son Van Peebles.
I saw “Posse” as a wee child… which means I haven’t seen it. But I definitely will very soon.
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