Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

WEBVTT
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Hi, welcome to NSYNC, the podcast that explores the history and impact of some
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of your favorite music moments in TV and film. I'm your host, Rachel Brodsky.
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And I am Aviv Rubinstein. With $100,000 of his own money, a $50,000 loan from
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Bill Cosby, and eventually some
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compensation from the Directors Guild of America for getting gonorrhea,
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Melvin Van Peebles wrote, produced, directed, and starred in 1971's Sweet Sweetback's Badass song.
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The movie combines two different documentary styles, experimental film,
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film noir, and westerns to create something wholly original that eventually
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made back a hundred times its media budget.
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It got called Required Viewing by the co-founder of the Black Panther Party
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and jump-started the blaxploitation genre of filmmaking, which would give us movies like Superfly,
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Blackula, and Troubleman, and which would inspire modern auteurs like Quentin
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Tarantino and Spike Lee.
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Sweet Sweetback also features a score composed by director Melvin Van Peebles
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and performed by a then unknown Earth, Wind & Fire.
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Today we're focusing on soundtrack selection Come On Feet, which plays while
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the titular character is on the run from a bunch of extremely racist cops.
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And to help us break down this classic film, its music, and this major needle
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drop is returning guest, journalist and author Stephen Kearse.
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How did this boundary-pushing but relatively esoteric film score a soundtrack
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by future seven-time Grammy winner Earth, Wind & Fire?
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How much money does Melvin Van Peebles still owe Earth, Wind & Fire?
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And what other literal crimes did Van Peebles commit while making this film?
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All that and more on this episode of NSYNC.
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Badass.
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Hi steven hello welcome.
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Back thanks it's good to be back.
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So steven you were you're the first returning guest on the show we had you on
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for our uh fight the power do the right thing episode and you got to pick this
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needle drop we like asked you if there was something you wanted to talk And you're like, yes, this.
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So I would love to get into kind of why you chose this needle drop in particular.
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But first, I want to give the listeners who may not be super familiar with the
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film, a little bit of a plot synopsis of like, what exactly is going on in this
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absolute fever dream of a movie.
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So sweet sweet back's badass song is
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not a movie you watch for the plot per se we open
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with a 13 year old boy looking like a stray dog taken in
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by a group of sex workers and after a hot meal one
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of the sex workers either through attraction or pity
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or boredom insists that this little
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boy played by mario van people the son of the director
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uh insists that he uh mount her and have sex with her and he doesn't really
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know what he's doing but she loves it anyway and she tells him that he has a
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sweet sweet back and after she climaxes the little boy is transformed into adult
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sweet back played by melvin van peebles so.
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It's like his bar mitzvah.
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It is exactly like his bar mitzvah and i don't know if we're supposed to take
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it literally that the sex worker engages in sex with a 13 year old boy and just
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loves it but it seems to be a little bit more of a metaphor of sweet back before
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someone like makes a man out of him and the weird thing is it happens again Again,
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we cut to like a sex show where a woman in a Bride of Frankenstein wig is deflowered
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in front of an audience by a woman in drag with a sizable strap on.
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And then a gay presenting man dressed as the good night fairy.
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It was tough to hear the dialogue.
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Waves a magic wand and turns this woman in drag into Sweetback,
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who also just goes to town on this woman and anyone in the audience who will volunteer, it seems.
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Wasn't it?
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Meanwhile.
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Wait, was it not like the good dyke?
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That's correct.
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Was it the good dyke fairy?
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Pretty sure it was the good dyke fairy because she says it. They say it a lot.
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They do say it a lot. And I was like, I thought it may have been that word.
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And then I was like, maybe not.
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I had the captions. I had the captions.
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We just learned that Eve doesn't watch movies with captions.
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Yeah.
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No, because I'll just read it. I won't watch the movie. I'll just like, whatever.
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See, I'm one of those brains that I understand. I will better understand what's
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happening if I can read a lot.
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I can't hear without my subtitles.
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I can't. I won't process without my subtitles.
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Yeah, well, clearly I didn't process it properly. Meanwhile,
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a couple cops are backstage asking the stage manager slash pimp,
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Beetle, for a patsy to spend the night in jail so that they can look good for
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their captain because a black man has been murdered and there's pressure from
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the black community to bring in a suspect.
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Beetle offers up sweet back, even though everyone knows that he had nothing to do with it.
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On the way to the police station, the officers also arrest a teenage Black Panther named Moo Moo.
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They handcuff Moo Moo and Sweetback together, but after Moo Moo insults the
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cops, they take both of them out of the car, they undo the handcuffs for Moo
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Moo, and they beat him within an inch of his life.
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Sweetback fashions his handcuffs into brass knuckles and beats the officers,
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putting them both into comas. Hell yeah.
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What follows is a citywide manhunt for Sweetback, who is now being labeled as
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a black militant, tagged for both the murder he didn't do and the beatings he did do.
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Sweetback runs from the cops. He's beaten. He's nearly arrested,
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but is bailed out by a lucky Molotov cocktail thrown by a black panther.
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He visits his priest, who tells him that these young kids like Moo Moo are the
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future of the community, and
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that's why the cops are trying to pluck the seeds before they can grow.
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Sweetback finds himself on the wrong side of the hell's angels and
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using his powers of being amazing at sex
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saves his own life meanwhile the
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police are searching high and low for sweetback they deafen beetle by firing
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their gun next to his ears and eventually resort to canvassing the community
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asking people if they've seen sweetback which seems to be like done for real
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like they seem to have interviewed just real random people off the streets while
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this whole movie is soundtrack by Earth, Wind & Fire,
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playing compositions by Melvin Van Peebles.
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This sequence in particular is set to our song of the week, Come On Feet.
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So let's take a listen now.
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Okay, Steven, why this needle drop?
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Yeah. So I was looking for any excuse to come back.
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And this was the first movie I watched. I did have my ears open and I guess
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eyes open too after first appearing.
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And I really did kind of want to find something.
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And when the song dropped in the middle of the movie, There's already this jazz
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melody that's been playing before then, and we hear different parts of it.
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This one, it was really weirdly diegetic, I guess, but also maybe not,
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because it's Melvin Ben-People's singing.
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Yeah his voice singing sweet back
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is you know on the run and he's we've
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already seen like the the movie is not exactly chronological so we've already
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seen him running but now we're we're in it we're in real time and it just it
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was just a really stunning montage and I feel like every The song, the sequence,
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the scenes, everything comes together in that moment.
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And it's a movie where...
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You were saying earlier that it's a fever dream. You can watch it and kind of
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fade in and out because it's so nonlinear and jerky.
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But when that song dropped, and I was actually watching this with the captions
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so I could see the lyrics, I was just like, oh my God, this is the movie.
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Because I hadn't seen Sweetback in a long time.
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I was watching it because I was reviewing a book, Francisco by,
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I forget the author's name, but the book came out in the seventies and it's
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like a auto fictional book by like a young black woman who's kind of like coming
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into her like sexual consciousness.
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And she was, there are parts of the book where she mentions being really inspired
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by Sweetback. So I was like, let me watch Sweetback.
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And I knew what I was getting into, but it was funny. I remembered the movie's
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scenes of running and dodging and evading.
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I remembered those, but I didn't remember the song. So it was just like I'm re-experiencing.
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I had a similar issue. I saw this in film school, so 15 or so years ago.
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And I didn't remember how striking the song is in that. Because it's basically
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wallpapered with this jazzy avant-garde earth, wind, and fire music.
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And then it goes to another level with this song.
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Right. And it's like a funk song. The drums are different. There's vocals.
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There's this call and response setup going on in the song. So it's just very different.
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And then it makes you think about the running a little differently.
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Because initially he's running because of what we've seen in the narrative,
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right? Bad things have happened.
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He doesn't want to get caught. But here it becomes something more spiritual
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and political and philosophical, but also very embodied.
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He's tired. He's been running for a long time. So this song coming in is like that second wind.
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Yeah, and for a character who has very, very little dialogue throughout the movie,
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this serves as sort of his inner monologue of psyching himself up to run away
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from the cops and run for the community.
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Right?
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The movie is starring the Black community, so it's very clearly he's running
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not just away from something, but for something.
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Mm-hmm.
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There's a lot that I really enjoyed learning about is not having gone to film school.
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Like this was my first introduction to Sweet Sweetback.
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And but I really enjoyed learning about like Melvin Van Peebles as a figure
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of like one of the forerunners of rap music and like the talk singing,
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the style of music presentation, kind of like being one of the first things,
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one of the first examples in, I guess, America.
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Because when i was to back up
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even more like i was studying like the the
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style is like sprit just saying i'm totally ruining
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that word right now and it's nailed it now i
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know i even i even looked up how to pronounce sprit
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just sprit saying it's a
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german a german word for um like a
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like a style of speech singing that like there there are
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so many contemporary examples like you could argue
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that olivia rodrigo does that gordon as well as
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oh yeah get him back right she's just like doing
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that she does that a lot and as like the b-52s
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and like a whole like a bunch of pop artists uh but but
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this example is kind of like the lead up um to what we ended up becoming hip-hop
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and just to kind of take it back quickly to like the ownership of like come
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on feet um like i read in that before we started recording.
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I mentioned this really great 2008 interview with Van Peebles from the Red Bull Academy.
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And he said, there's this belief in God and the quote, the Lord will help.
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And that's why Sweetback is saying, come on feet,
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cruise for me, help me get away and he said that
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he wanted to kind of like take ownership like he was talking about why the black
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panthers like this movie so much and quote i took all the major cultural fears
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of the black community and debunked them tore them down that's why he's being
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chased by dogs and then in the end kills them.
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That's also why he uh a white
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woman volunteers to have sex with him at the sex show and immediately
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everyone like looks at the cops and is like is this allowed and
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the good dyke fairy is like uh the sisters only yeah
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so it's like it is also the the
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fears of the black community and also the projected fears that the white community
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had about black people or has about black people like they are uh you know stealing
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the women and all of this stuff that's like completely unfounded clearly but
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really really interesting how sweet back can like
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be all of those things that the character of sweet back can be all of those
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things at once, which is probably why he never talks a lot of the,
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at least in the film, at least like when I was in school, some of the, the.
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Perspective of melvin van
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peoples was that he he didn't really know necessarily
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what he was doing but he just like had this
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passion for filmmaking went out and did it with
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his own money and it and it's the success story of like an amateur making good
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and that's that's not actually the case so uh in the 1920s after the industrial
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revolution had transformed cities into these like giant gray metropolises there
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was an early form of documentary filmmaking called the city symphony,
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and there wasn't really plot a plot to these films you
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just kind of follow the camera around exploring buildings and
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industry and people in a busy city and it's
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almost like how people listen to rainy day coffee
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shop asmr it's just like a pleasant thing to watch and some notable examples
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of city symphonies is uh berlin symphony of a great city directed by walter
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ruttman and manhattan which might be the one of the first directed by paul strand
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from 1921 and so in sweet sweet back,
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melvin van peebles i'm just going to call melvin because there's also mario
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melvin takes what's supposed to be the beauty and progress of a city like los
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angeles in a city symphony and subverts it to show the people and places in
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la basically in complete ruin oh you know what you.
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Know what that made me think of a little bit actually um falling down.
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Oh yeah but like the but the less racist version of what is falling down it
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is a michael douglas movie where um i i'll take it no i i kind.
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Of i i mean we can get into a whole like discussion of.
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I don't think that that movie is actually racist but it is sometimes misinterpreted by but.
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I yeah i mean i think the.
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Character yeah.
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Well it's it's it was made in the 90s with.
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Michael douglas.
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Playing this like government worker, if I remember correctly.
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He's having a real bad day.
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And he's, it's just like, it takes place over the course of one day and it's
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basically like this story of an incel type of guy who doesn't feel like he's,
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his work isn't needed anymore.
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His personhood isn't, it's like he's in a changing city with changing demographics.
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Graphics the movie is very focused on like what echo park i think silver lake
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a little bit like i guess the beginnings of east la it feels.
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Like the city is passed him by and.
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Yeah and and of course and then he and then he ends up like just like gunning
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down a bunch of people and yeah and like this like violent spree he's like on
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his way to work gets caught in traffic and then ends up just murdering a bunch of people.
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But I never... But LA is not dreamy, beautiful.
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It's like a very downtrodden vision of LA in the 90s.
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But I did not feel like the movie was on Michael Douglas's side.
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It is definitely a picture of urban decay.
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So Sweet Sweetback combines the city symphony with the 50s and 60s style of cinema verite,
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which is a documentary and sometimes narrative film style that strove for like
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a completely detached observational style and the experimental styles of people like Louis Bunuel,
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specifically Simon of the Desert, Andy Warhol, a little bit of Godard,
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and it creates a style that feels like a complete fever dream, as you said, Stephen.
00:17:18.977 --> 00:17:23.057
And I'm mentioning all these filmmakers and styles, not because I feel the need
00:17:23.057 --> 00:17:29.097
to justify my degree, but because it's very clear to me. Yeah, right.
00:17:29.557 --> 00:17:31.937
BU, forgive my student loans, please.
00:17:33.937 --> 00:17:38.077
It's very clear that even though this film is a little rough around the edges,
00:17:38.817 --> 00:17:41.177
they didn't not know what they were doing.
00:17:41.897 --> 00:17:47.717
And I think the narrative around Melvin Van Peebles being like a completely
00:17:47.717 --> 00:17:52.637
amateur filmmaker who just like had a vision is a little informed by the race
00:17:52.637 --> 00:17:54.737
and class of the filmmaker, if we're being honest.
00:17:55.017 --> 00:17:59.397
But he's not a dumb filmmaker and he's not an uninformed filmmaker.
00:17:59.637 --> 00:18:03.497
He's not even a first time filmmaker. He had directed several pictures for Columbia,
00:18:03.697 --> 00:18:08.277
including the hugely influential Watermelon Man, which is a much higher budget
00:18:08.277 --> 00:18:15.437
studio film done with all of the trimmings that you would expect from a movie of the late 60s.
00:18:15.477 --> 00:18:19.877
And if you don't think this film is about anything, I would just ask how many
00:18:19.877 --> 00:18:24.857
times we see that neon Jesus saves sign throughout the film as Sweetback repeatedly
00:18:24.857 --> 00:18:27.197
sacrifices himself for the sins of others.
00:18:27.197 --> 00:18:31.137
Yeah, that's a really potent symbol among many.
00:18:31.137 --> 00:18:33.977
Yeah so i wanted to ask you
00:18:33.977 --> 00:18:36.857
about the idea of this like transmogrification that i
00:18:36.857 --> 00:18:40.117
had mentioned in the synopsis right
00:18:40.117 --> 00:18:43.197
we have young mario van peebles transform
00:18:43.197 --> 00:18:46.457
into melvin after he is as
00:18:46.457 --> 00:18:49.497
rachel says bar mitzvahed and we also
00:18:49.497 --> 00:18:52.697
have this woman in
00:18:52.697 --> 00:19:01.317
drag transformed by the good dyke fairy into sweet back what what do we what
00:19:01.317 --> 00:19:06.537
does this all mean man there's even a third transmogrification uh into sweet
00:19:06.537 --> 00:19:10.717
back if you if you count the the hippie that changes clothes with them yeah.
00:19:10.717 --> 00:19:17.717
I mean it's it's a layer cake of meaning i think that you know there are these ideas about,
00:19:18.933 --> 00:19:28.533
Black masculinity, specifically, there's this sense that Black boys become men
00:19:28.533 --> 00:19:32.793
very quickly because of how they are sexualized,
00:19:32.873 --> 00:19:34.713
how they are surveilled,
00:19:34.813 --> 00:19:36.833
and how they are seen as dangerous.
00:19:37.533 --> 00:19:47.553
And there's also Sweepback in becoming this almost like folkloric figure over
00:19:47.553 --> 00:19:48.653
the course of the movie, right?
00:19:48.933 --> 00:19:52.233
I think they're playing with that in the scenes with the interviews where people
00:19:52.233 --> 00:19:57.013
are kind of winking like, yeah, I don't know Sweetback, but they do know him.
00:19:57.053 --> 00:19:59.353
He's like Batman or something, basically.
00:19:59.733 --> 00:20:05.813
I think that there's this sense that there's this outlaw nature to him.
00:20:05.913 --> 00:20:09.673
I mean, he's almost like he's the like folkloric figure or John Henry.
00:20:10.193 --> 00:20:13.693
Very, very different context. But, you know, he beating the machine.
00:20:13.753 --> 00:20:14.093
Right.
00:20:14.213 --> 00:20:23.193
But in his evasion and even in his access to these marginal spaces, he goes to the church.
00:20:23.293 --> 00:20:26.953
He sees the clinic above the church.
00:20:27.253 --> 00:20:36.793
He's in this sexual theater space, and he's also in the boonies, I guess.
00:20:37.873 --> 00:20:42.613
Yeah right and and the the western symbolism of like wandering through the he's
00:20:42.613 --> 00:20:46.133
in like a vest and tight pants and boots like wandering through the desert like
00:20:46.133 --> 00:20:50.713
he is this western man with no name sort of figure his.
00:20:50.713 --> 00:20:55.333
Costume becomes real yeah.
00:20:55.333 --> 00:21:02.393
Yeah his his save his saving grace i also i mean the in the interesting thing
00:21:02.393 --> 00:21:06.933
about this especially as compared to like many other movies from the seventies
00:21:06.933 --> 00:21:09.533
is like, we have this queer space,
00:21:09.753 --> 00:21:12.553
the sexualized space, the space with sex workers,
00:21:13.533 --> 00:21:18.433
this place that like seems to be a rooftop abortion clinic or,
00:21:18.493 --> 00:21:21.953
or just some, some kind of clinic in general.
00:21:22.053 --> 00:21:26.093
And we also see a bunch of not just queer women, but queer men.
00:21:26.413 --> 00:21:32.913
And the film doesn't seem to have any judgment on these types of people,
00:21:32.913 --> 00:21:40.193
which is not is that that's pretty unique for films of this era and films that
00:21:40.193 --> 00:21:44.633
like cater to one specific community usually at the expense of other communities right.
00:21:44.633 --> 00:21:47.513
Something avivi just said reminded me of this uh
00:21:47.513 --> 00:21:50.453
another film that i am
00:21:50.453 --> 00:21:54.473
unfortunately blinking on the name of but it was made in the 80s and it's like
00:21:54.473 --> 00:21:59.753
this very impartial just filming technique the same way that we're taught what
00:21:59.753 --> 00:22:04.153
we're talking about right now of just takes place over the course of one day
00:22:04.153 --> 00:22:10.053
with a woman who's putting herself or she's saving up money,
00:22:10.153 --> 00:22:13.193
but she's working as a sex worker in New York City.
00:22:13.473 --> 00:22:15.033
Is this the Liz Borden movie?
00:22:16.110 --> 00:22:19.690
Yes yes not born in flames but.
00:22:19.690 --> 00:22:20.550
The other one.
00:22:20.550 --> 00:22:23.630
Yeah working girls from 1986 we did it yes.
00:22:23.630 --> 00:22:26.470
Working girls from yes yeah nailed it i mean and
00:22:26.470 --> 00:22:31.730
that also has like callbacks to like jean dielman which was number one on sight
00:22:31.730 --> 00:22:37.010
and sound's top movies of all time list this year and belle du jour and like
00:22:37.010 --> 00:22:45.030
the day in the life of the sex worker judgment free observational slow I wouldn't
00:22:45.030 --> 00:22:46.310
call a sweetback slow cinema,
00:22:46.410 --> 00:22:51.350
but absolutely this kind of passivity in terms of the lens.
00:22:51.590 --> 00:22:57.790
During this montage that we are hearing come on feet, there is this woman that
00:22:57.790 --> 00:22:58.990
is interviewed by the cops.
00:22:59.250 --> 00:23:05.630
And she repeats over and over and over again that she's helping to raise children.
00:23:05.750 --> 00:23:09.430
And then once they get to a certain age, they get taken away from her.
00:23:09.430 --> 00:23:12.310
And you hear her repeat this over
00:23:12.310 --> 00:23:17.650
and over and over again which is like kind of a french new wave technique or
00:23:17.650 --> 00:23:21.910
or some kind of like avant-garde technique but like it's it becomes this weird
00:23:21.910 --> 00:23:27.850
the more you hear it the more powerful it becomes a statement of like this this
00:23:27.850 --> 00:23:30.450
woman's hardships who we never see right and.
00:23:30.450 --> 00:23:35.350
I think it it also refers back to sweet back in a way right like There's this gap.
00:23:35.350 --> 00:23:36.130
Between when.
00:23:36.130 --> 00:23:43.650
He's transformed in that opening scene, there's this gap between that boy and that man.
00:23:43.870 --> 00:23:48.490
And I feel like that scene is hinting at that. At some point,
00:23:48.530 --> 00:23:50.490
he became someone different.
00:23:50.730 --> 00:23:53.910
And this isn't just his unique transformation.
00:23:54.010 --> 00:23:58.210
It's something that all of these Black children that surround that woman when
00:23:58.210 --> 00:24:02.710
she's giving that statement might experience, or maybe will experience.
00:24:02.790 --> 00:24:03.770
There's almost this like,
00:24:04.514 --> 00:24:06.374
implied inevitability to it.
00:24:06.374 --> 00:24:09.314
And and that speaks directly to
00:24:09.314 --> 00:24:12.434
like what the priest says to him of like these new
00:24:12.434 --> 00:24:15.734
kids are different they are our hope and
00:24:15.734 --> 00:24:19.254
that's why the cops like the the system
00:24:19.254 --> 00:24:22.074
has like a level of indifference to people like sweet
00:24:22.074 --> 00:24:25.074
back they just like let them wilt and die
00:24:25.074 --> 00:24:28.134
versus the black panthers and the younger generation
00:24:28.134 --> 00:24:31.074
who they're actively trying to stamp out because they
00:24:31.074 --> 00:24:34.274
are a threat to the to the system or whatever so
00:24:34.274 --> 00:24:37.034
melvin van peoples is a filmmaker with a vision for sure
00:24:37.034 --> 00:24:39.754
but that comes with a certain level of
00:24:39.754 --> 00:24:42.334
mania which caused him to i don't want
00:24:42.334 --> 00:24:45.514
to like gloss over some of the things that he did in the filmmaking process
00:24:45.514 --> 00:24:50.714
so operating out of the studio system allowed melvin to do things without oversight
00:24:50.714 --> 00:24:54.634
to experiment with sexuality the summer of love was only a few years previous
00:24:54.634 --> 00:25:00.074
after all and he cast his own son Mario as the younger sweet back and directed
00:25:00.074 --> 00:25:02.834
him in a scene with full frontal nudity,
00:25:02.834 --> 00:25:05.694
full frontal nudity and simulated sex with an adult,
00:25:05.894 --> 00:25:09.654
which is what's the word child abuse.
00:25:10.114 --> 00:25:12.154
I think his son was 10.
00:25:12.414 --> 00:25:14.334
In fact, his son was 10 at the time.
00:25:14.374 --> 00:25:15.154
I read that.
00:25:15.374 --> 00:25:21.454
Yeah. So he had, Mario had a really complicated relationship with this role
00:25:21.454 --> 00:25:23.894
in the movie for at least the rest of Melvin's life.
00:25:23.894 --> 00:25:26.734
Life melvin said in 2010 that he didn't
00:25:26.734 --> 00:25:29.954
want the kids at school to see him he mario didn't
00:25:29.954 --> 00:25:32.694
want the kids at school to see him doing that you know
00:25:32.694 --> 00:25:35.434
kids i told him not to worry about it shut the fuck
00:25:35.434 --> 00:25:38.174
up and do what i say and now every time he gets
00:25:38.174 --> 00:25:43.754
abroad he says hey honey come watch me in this movie what i fit what i melvin
00:25:43.754 --> 00:25:48.014
found very interesting is that people couldn't believe i used my own son everybody
00:25:48.014 --> 00:25:52.094
somebody's kid if that was so wrong why would i do it with someone else's his
00:25:52.094 --> 00:25:56.034
kid I wonder if he spent he.
00:25:56.034 --> 00:26:02.794
Spent a considerable amount of time in Europe yes two movies there.
00:26:02.794 --> 00:26:06.974
Yeah the three day passes is Europe right,
00:26:08.229 --> 00:26:09.349
I think it was originally a French release.
00:26:09.349 --> 00:26:12.389
I'm not sure specifically which movies that he, but sure.
00:26:12.509 --> 00:26:17.669
I found just reading about Melvin fascinating on a number of levels because
00:26:17.669 --> 00:26:22.069
he was just like a genius,
00:26:22.249 --> 00:26:28.289
like genius level smart and spent a lot of time in, I think,
00:26:28.309 --> 00:26:30.729
like the Netherlands and France.
00:26:30.729 --> 00:26:34.289
And i guess i'm
00:26:34.289 --> 00:26:37.969
like when you're a very
00:26:37.969 --> 00:26:40.789
very very smart person i think
00:26:40.789 --> 00:26:44.249
sometimes you can like almost rationalize your
00:26:44.249 --> 00:26:47.489
way out you can like logic your way out of society
00:26:47.489 --> 00:26:50.349
is you know the rules the
00:26:50.349 --> 00:26:53.869
rules yeah what have you and add
00:26:53.869 --> 00:26:56.809
that on top of like no one's letting
00:26:56.809 --> 00:27:03.529
me make this movie my way because of like the racist infrastructures that exist
00:27:03.529 --> 00:27:11.609
within hollywood and add that on top of european styles of art that's kind of
00:27:11.609 --> 00:27:16.669
how i like pictured this like full circle like how that happened yeah there's a real.
00:27:16.669 --> 00:27:23.689
Um liberty to how he goes about making the film and And, you know,
00:27:23.709 --> 00:27:28.449
another kind of mark on the film is that it was also like a non-union production.
00:27:29.449 --> 00:27:36.229
And in some ways you get the, because of that, you get some of these like, like the Hells Angels.
00:27:36.349 --> 00:27:39.829
I don't think that probably happens because those are like real Hells Angels.
00:27:39.909 --> 00:27:40.589
That's my understanding.
00:27:41.169 --> 00:27:44.809
Those are real Hells Angels. Yes. I think they have a different name in the
00:27:44.809 --> 00:27:47.429
movie, but they are the actual Hells Angels. Yeah.
00:27:47.669 --> 00:27:58.469
So with that looseness, you do get these odd happenings that probably couldn't be scripted per se.
00:27:58.669 --> 00:28:02.329
But yeah, I mean, it's embedded in the movie.
00:28:02.349 --> 00:28:06.889
Even when you're watching it, I think one common takeaway from it and one that
00:28:06.889 --> 00:28:09.309
I had when I first saw it was like, who is Sweetback?
00:28:09.309 --> 00:28:14.529
I didn't really understand watching this, kind of expecting a character with
00:28:14.529 --> 00:28:18.269
motivations and a background and things like that when I first watched it.
00:28:18.329 --> 00:28:22.129
I was really perplexed by this folkloric presentation.
00:28:22.809 --> 00:28:25.709
And it's funny because it's- I think he's Jesus, right?
00:28:25.889 --> 00:28:30.869
He just like, everyone puts their problems onto, their needs onto him.
00:28:31.089 --> 00:28:38.389
But there are times where he actually, I think he has more agency than is often acknowledged.
00:28:38.389 --> 00:28:44.069
When he is given the option to go up against the Prez in a contest,
00:28:44.109 --> 00:28:48.889
and they list all these things they can do, and he kind of pauses and he says, Fuck it.
00:28:51.509 --> 00:28:54.549
Which might be his third line in the movie.
00:28:55.749 --> 00:29:01.309
It's bizarre, but it's like, okay, there's someone in there.
00:29:01.529 --> 00:29:03.029
And it's the same when he...
00:29:04.084 --> 00:29:06.944
Decides to stop the the cops from
00:29:06.944 --> 00:29:09.824
beating muumuu you know he's first he's like kind
00:29:09.824 --> 00:29:13.184
of looking to the side and he's indifferent and
00:29:13.184 --> 00:29:16.124
really trying not to engage because it's like okay this
00:29:16.124 --> 00:29:19.384
is what they do this is routine but the way
00:29:19.384 --> 00:29:22.444
it's edited you see in his facial expressions some some
00:29:22.444 --> 00:29:25.584
real inner turmoil and you know
00:29:25.584 --> 00:29:29.264
i i think sometimes just like in the looking at
00:29:29.264 --> 00:29:31.884
old movies from the modern era where a lot of
00:29:31.884 --> 00:29:34.904
movies have been kind of inspired by television which
00:29:34.904 --> 00:29:37.764
i say neutrally and there's like a
00:29:37.764 --> 00:29:40.964
real emphasis on dialogue over
00:29:40.964 --> 00:29:44.444
imagery or even acting i can
00:29:44.444 --> 00:29:50.424
appreciate that the movie really forces you to wonder like what's going on in
00:29:50.424 --> 00:29:56.284
this guy's brain why does he do these things and you know there are actual plausible
00:29:56.284 --> 00:30:01.124
explanations whereas you know i don't know i I watched something like Salt Burn and I'm like,
00:30:01.164 --> 00:30:04.324
I don't know why anyone is doing anything. Sorry to throw shots at Salt Burn. I just.
00:30:04.644 --> 00:30:06.604
No, actually, I thought of Salt Burn too.
00:30:06.604 --> 00:30:08.484
Our Salt Burn episode's out. Fuck Salt Burn.
00:30:08.504 --> 00:30:12.924
Yeah. No, I thought of Salt Burn too, actually, but in like a very different context.
00:30:12.984 --> 00:30:16.944
Because when we were, we did an episode on Salt Burn and we started out by talking
00:30:16.944 --> 00:30:22.784
about how like Salt Burn's like this litmus test for like how much cinema,
00:30:22.984 --> 00:30:25.044
experimental cinema you've seen.
00:30:25.044 --> 00:30:29.864
And if you've seen a little bit less, then Saltburn's going to seem ultra-transgressive.
00:30:29.864 --> 00:30:35.524
But if you've seen a little bit more, some really loose, non-unionized cinema,
00:30:35.944 --> 00:30:39.224
then Saltburn's going to seem shrug.
00:30:39.664 --> 00:30:44.064
Yeah. And I think Sweetback is, like you said, a similar litmus test.
00:30:44.064 --> 00:30:50.304
And like i understand so like you know put yourself in melvin's shoes where he's it's 1970,
00:30:51.664 --> 00:30:54.404
summer of love hippies all this stuff
00:30:54.404 --> 00:30:59.704
free love sexual revolution coming from europe and he still wants to like push
00:30:59.704 --> 00:31:04.604
all the boundaries and so he definitely crosses a line with like putting his
00:31:04.604 --> 00:31:12.204
son or or any 10 year old in in a sexual position like that some of the sex scenes in this movie are,
00:31:13.364 --> 00:31:17.564
are unsimulated with not with Mario, but with Melvin, he's like,
00:31:17.564 --> 00:31:19.384
really, you're watching him really have sex.
00:31:19.464 --> 00:31:23.224
But this was like the type of avant-garde cinema that we were making where we're
00:31:23.224 --> 00:31:25.344
like, Oh, what is the line between, uh,
00:31:25.910 --> 00:31:29.290
pornography and art is there a line between pornography and
00:31:29.290 --> 00:31:32.210
art but this is what led melvin to contract
00:31:32.210 --> 00:31:37.570
gonorrhea which he uh he sued the director's guild of america so he was still
00:31:37.570 --> 00:31:41.830
union uh the director's guild of america for like basically workers workers
00:31:41.830 --> 00:31:47.450
comp that he was injured on the job and settling the suit allowed him to like
00:31:47.450 --> 00:31:51.790
put more money into the movie which is oh man it's.
00:31:51.790 --> 00:31:53.330
Uh it's creative yeah.
00:31:53.330 --> 00:31:56.050
Yeah and uh the scene that
00:31:56.050 --> 00:31:59.090
you're mentioning steven the biker gang scene we we
00:31:59.090 --> 00:32:02.090
talked about it a little bit but melvin hired real hell's
00:32:02.090 --> 00:32:04.990
angels and this is after both the massacre
00:32:04.990 --> 00:32:08.130
at altamont and the cinema verite documentary
00:32:08.130 --> 00:32:11.630
about the incident called gimme shelter which he
00:32:11.630 --> 00:32:14.770
definitely saw because he's a cinema verite fan and he
00:32:14.770 --> 00:32:17.850
paid them in advance which was a smart move on the hell's angels's part
00:32:17.850 --> 00:32:20.590
and during the shoot when the
00:32:20.590 --> 00:32:23.390
leader of the hell's angels announced that the gang
00:32:23.390 --> 00:32:27.970
was ready to leave melvin refused to let them go because they hadn't been fit
00:32:27.970 --> 00:32:31.690
they hadn't finished the scene yet and the leader pulled out a knife and began
00:32:31.690 --> 00:32:37.330
taunting him so this is the the legend is that melvin snapped his fingers and
00:32:37.330 --> 00:32:42.570
his crew came out with rifles and then the angels stayed and finished the scene wow.
00:32:43.790 --> 00:32:45.110
Wow all right i.
00:32:45.110 --> 00:32:48.370
Mean i think melvin just like sweetback melvin really
00:32:48.370 --> 00:32:52.470
relishes like the let his own legend you know
00:32:52.470 --> 00:32:55.670
um and for mario's part he continued acting
00:32:55.670 --> 00:33:02.970
and and he directed himself in the 2003 docudrama hybrid sound familiar about
00:33:02.970 --> 00:33:08.110
the making of sweet sweetback called badass where he plays his own father and
00:33:08.110 --> 00:33:13.090
as his father directs a kid playing him at 13 to do the sex scene.
00:33:14.150 --> 00:33:19.850
By the way, Rainn Wilson is in the movie two years before he starts playing Dwight on The Office.
00:33:20.350 --> 00:33:25.650
It's very weird. Love it. Post Six Feet Under, Rainn Wilson pre-Office.
00:33:26.090 --> 00:33:29.170
Post Galaxy Quest, one of my all-time favorites.
00:33:30.170 --> 00:33:34.950
So the film ends with Sweetback crossing the border into Mexico being chased by dogs.
00:33:35.510 --> 00:33:40.310
Our nearly final shot is of a dog laying dead in a river, killed by Sweetback
00:33:40.310 --> 00:33:43.810
before it had a chance to tear him limb from limb. And as Stephen mentioned...
00:33:43.810 --> 00:33:46.050
Please don't tell me the dogs were really killed.
00:33:46.630 --> 00:33:47.090
Well...
00:33:48.433 --> 00:33:52.913
As Stephen mentioned, this is like calling back to the civil rights movement
00:33:52.913 --> 00:33:56.153
where cops would sick German shepherds on.
00:33:56.373 --> 00:34:00.673
You know, there's plenty of pictures and footage to look at to really horrify yourself.
00:34:00.953 --> 00:34:04.353
This is according to Van Peebles. So once again, this is the legend.
00:34:04.513 --> 00:34:08.233
I'm like hoping that this is just the legend.
00:34:08.413 --> 00:34:12.213
That the dead dogs in the scene were sourced from the Humane Society.
00:34:12.493 --> 00:34:17.833
And this is his quote. Boy, we were lucky. at first the society didn't even
00:34:17.833 --> 00:34:22.173
think it could help us but after a little donation they looked in their refrigerator
00:34:22.173 --> 00:34:28.373
again and i guess found almost exactly what we were looking for so,
00:34:29.433 --> 00:34:32.093
melvin is implying one of two things here which is that
00:34:32.093 --> 00:34:37.113
they paid the humane society off for a dead dog which i would i hope is the
00:34:37.113 --> 00:34:41.773
the right one because the donation could also be that melvin Melvin killed a
00:34:41.773 --> 00:34:45.913
dog and had someone drop it off at the Humane Society so he could have like
00:34:45.913 --> 00:34:49.673
a paper trail for sourcing a dog cadaver, which is like cartoonishly evil.
00:34:49.853 --> 00:34:54.573
But if the child abuse didn't do it for you, hopefully the dog murder does.
00:34:56.613 --> 00:35:00.593
But Rachel and I were talking before we recorded about like why more people
00:35:00.593 --> 00:35:06.413
aren't aware of like what an incredible genius, creative genius he was.
00:35:06.413 --> 00:35:11.913
And I think that it's because Melvin continued to live in this category of,
00:35:12.033 --> 00:35:17.213
like, maybe I did know what I was doing. Maybe I didn't. Who knows?
00:35:17.633 --> 00:35:22.733
Right? I'm going to take credit for, like, inventing soundtrack albums and hip hop.
00:35:22.853 --> 00:35:28.893
But, like, what did I give the Humane Society for that dog? And it provides
00:35:28.893 --> 00:35:37.233
them a little cover for this criticism of child abuse and union abuse and animal abuse as well.
00:35:37.233 --> 00:35:43.813
Yeah, I think that sometimes filmmakers can also be punished for not willingly
00:35:43.813 --> 00:35:51.053
speaking the language of pedigreed filmmaking.
00:35:51.053 --> 00:35:56.433
Making like i chose this shot for this reason i i chose this music um at this
00:35:56.433 --> 00:36:01.313
moment for this reason some some filmmakers they would rather mystify it or
00:36:01.313 --> 00:36:07.293
they truly are not conscious um of these choices they make or at least they
00:36:07.293 --> 00:36:09.253
they don't feel that they can,
00:36:10.933 --> 00:36:15.913
like reliably narrate the choices they made in that way yeah.
00:36:15.913 --> 00:36:20.773
David lynch loves to say just like Like, no, I'm not going to explain what I was intending.
00:36:21.853 --> 00:36:27.933
Yeah. I mean, but I guess, you know, sometimes it's also just like your legacy,
00:36:28.113 --> 00:36:36.153
in air quotes, is kind of determined by how well you kind of narrate it yourself.
00:36:36.833 --> 00:36:41.133
And he has long seemed pretty indifferent to that.
00:36:41.193 --> 00:36:45.893
He just seems to like do what he wants to do or he did what he wants to do.
00:36:47.161 --> 00:36:52.021
Yeah, and I think part of that is he did operate in the studio system for half
00:36:52.021 --> 00:36:56.581
a decade, and then leaving the studio system, he's like, well, fuck you.
00:36:57.401 --> 00:37:02.081
You didn't believe in me. Now this movie is a big hit. You want to know what
00:37:02.081 --> 00:37:04.621
it's about now? It's on the screen.
00:37:06.081 --> 00:37:09.061
Sweet sweet back came out just 90 days
00:37:09.061 --> 00:37:12.241
before another pillar of the budding genre
00:37:12.241 --> 00:37:15.061
of low budget crime films that focused on the
00:37:15.061 --> 00:37:20.581
black community with a killer needle drop no less shaft yeah shaft had about
00:37:20.581 --> 00:37:24.881
triple the budget of sweet sweet back five hundred thousand dollars versus 150
00:37:24.881 --> 00:37:31.601
000 and it had similar success and it jump started a genre known as blaxploitation
00:37:31.601 --> 00:37:34.461
so So real quick primer on blaxploitation.
00:37:34.901 --> 00:37:41.681
An exploitation film is a film that tries to financially succeed by exploiting
00:37:41.681 --> 00:37:45.461
trends, niche genres, or like lurid content.
00:37:45.621 --> 00:37:49.781
If you've heard of the movie Reefer Madness, where people smoke weed and then
00:37:49.781 --> 00:37:54.541
become sex fiends, that is an exploitation film. Just kidding. Generally low budget.
00:37:56.001 --> 00:37:57.441
That's what happens.
00:37:57.801 --> 00:38:02.781
That's what happens. That's a documentary. documentary um and they're
00:38:02.781 --> 00:38:06.781
they're generally not like loved by
00:38:06.781 --> 00:38:09.561
critics but eventually some of them
00:38:09.561 --> 00:38:12.981
become historically important gain a cult following and
00:38:12.981 --> 00:38:17.041
they too have their start in the 20s so sometimes
00:38:17.041 --> 00:38:20.321
the only way that filmmakers from marginalized groups black
00:38:20.321 --> 00:38:23.141
voices queer voices etc could be represented on screen
00:38:23.141 --> 00:38:26.901
was to kind of minstrelize themselves right
00:38:26.901 --> 00:38:29.841
and take their power back that way and black exploitation
00:38:29.841 --> 00:38:32.801
though thought of as a vehicle for the
00:38:32.801 --> 00:38:35.661
post-civil rights movement 70s got its
00:38:35.661 --> 00:38:38.861
start in the 20s with filmmaker oscar
00:38:38.861 --> 00:38:44.781
michaud who directed something like 42 films in 29 years half of which are like
00:38:44.781 --> 00:38:49.661
lost to time and these films were low budget they portrayed the black experience
00:38:49.661 --> 00:38:54.681
in the 20s from the 20s through the 40s and sometimes were responses Responses
00:38:54.681 --> 00:38:56.761
to mainstream films like the birth of a nation.
00:38:57.901 --> 00:39:03.221
So, you know, birth of a nation comes out very famously, extremely racist and
00:39:03.221 --> 00:39:05.721
Oscar B shows like that's not what being black is like.
00:39:05.921 --> 00:39:10.301
I'm going to make like a low budget film about the real black experience.
00:39:10.341 --> 00:39:12.881
His most famous and most,
00:39:14.005 --> 00:39:17.185
i don't want to say best but his most famous surviving movie is
00:39:17.185 --> 00:39:20.105
called murder in harlem which is basically just
00:39:20.105 --> 00:39:23.045
shaft it's like a black detective going up
00:39:23.045 --> 00:39:26.105
against the white system and it's
00:39:26.105 --> 00:39:29.165
the dialogue is very stilted it like has all the hallmarks of
00:39:29.165 --> 00:39:31.925
black the blaxploitation genre except for the
00:39:31.925 --> 00:39:35.365
music but it does have 20s like flapper music instead
00:39:35.365 --> 00:39:38.545
it's very or it's from the 30s 30s
00:39:38.545 --> 00:39:41.985
flapper music is super interesting to watch but it's more
00:39:41.985 --> 00:39:44.665
fair to say that sweet back and shaft jump-started the
00:39:44.665 --> 00:39:47.605
second wave of blaxploitation which after old man
00:39:47.605 --> 00:39:50.485
hollywood got wind of a film like this making a
00:39:50.485 --> 00:39:54.225
hundred times its budget immediately started churning out more and more pictures
00:39:54.225 --> 00:39:58.925
that catered to black audiences with funky soundtracks and at first they tried
00:39:58.925 --> 00:40:02.845
to provide some insight into the black and black militant experience but by
00:40:02.845 --> 00:40:08.445
the end of it we were getting things like disco godfather black samurai eye and black belt jones no.
00:40:08.445 --> 00:40:13.125
They they always had to put black in the title it became like really absurd yeah.
00:40:13.125 --> 00:40:15.925
Scream blackula scream there's a
00:40:15.925 --> 00:40:19.285
there's a gag on 30 rock where tracy jordan
00:40:19.285 --> 00:40:23.805
says that he was in an all-black remake of an affair to remember called a bluff
00:40:23.805 --> 00:40:30.025
air to remember and i think about that joke maybe maybe once a day i think it's
00:40:30.025 --> 00:40:33.785
the funniest thing and this isn't unique to black exploitation films anytime
00:40:33.785 --> 00:40:37.265
there's a new movement in cinema that But the suits try to capitalize on it
00:40:37.265 --> 00:40:38.525
while taking away all of its edge.
00:40:38.865 --> 00:40:39.965
It's true in music.
00:40:39.985 --> 00:40:40.185
Too.
00:40:40.665 --> 00:40:41.405
Yeah, anything.
00:40:41.505 --> 00:40:42.865
Where do you think Nickelback came from?
00:40:43.885 --> 00:40:44.285
Canada.
00:40:46.685 --> 00:40:50.185
They're like post, post, post, post, post, post, post, post, grunge.
00:40:50.565 --> 00:40:51.205
Yeah, right.
00:40:51.845 --> 00:40:54.345
Corporate, corporate, corporate, corporate grunge. And they just found a way
00:40:54.345 --> 00:40:57.425
to remain popular based on their own unpopularity.
00:40:57.605 --> 00:40:58.925
Yeah, right. The meme-ification.
00:41:07.685 --> 00:41:11.125
And black belt jones is a federal agent which
00:41:11.125 --> 00:41:14.925
is something that sweetback or shaft would never abide but
00:41:14.925 --> 00:41:19.145
shaft eventually becomes a cop right sweetback
00:41:19.145 --> 00:41:22.425
remained true and the themes of the film taking an everyman
00:41:22.425 --> 00:41:25.405
with a giant hog and radicalizing him
00:41:25.405 --> 00:41:28.365
and then turning him into a messiah with a giant hog
00:41:28.365 --> 00:41:31.785
caught the eye of huey p newton the co-founder
00:41:31.785 --> 00:41:35.045
of the black panther party and newton devoted
00:41:35.045 --> 00:41:37.925
an entire issue of the black panther the
00:41:37.925 --> 00:41:41.045
newspaper of the party to the film's revolutionary implications
00:41:41.045 --> 00:41:48.045
um and he said quote this is the first truly revolutionary black film made and
00:41:48.045 --> 00:41:52.865
presented to us by a black man and he said he wrote that sweetback presents
00:41:52.865 --> 00:41:57.465
the need for unity among all members and institutions within the community of
00:41:57.465 --> 00:41:59.245
victims contending that
00:41:59.325 --> 00:42:03.805
this is evidenced by the opening credits, which state that the film stars the black community,
00:42:03.985 --> 00:42:09.205
a collective protagonist engaged in various acts of community solidarity that
00:42:09.205 --> 00:42:10.485
aid sweet back in escaping.
00:42:11.789 --> 00:42:15.949
Newton further argued that the film demonstrates the importance of unity and
00:42:15.949 --> 00:42:19.789
love between black men and women as demonstrated in the scene where the woman
00:42:19.789 --> 00:42:24.649
makes love to the young boy but in fact baptizes him into his true manhood wow
00:42:24.649 --> 00:42:30.369
the film became required viewing for new members of the black panther party baptizes.
00:42:30.369 --> 00:42:33.589
What a what an image i mean it's.
00:42:33.589 --> 00:42:34.289
There in the.
00:42:34.289 --> 00:42:35.109
Movie but it's just.
00:42:35.109 --> 00:42:38.209
Like it's there wow and the music
00:42:38.209 --> 00:42:41.009
cue in that moment which we're we're talking about a
00:42:41.009 --> 00:42:44.449
lot in terms of its production it's like production follies wait
00:42:44.449 --> 00:42:49.609
in the water is wait in the water right it's like a pretty naughty is a hymn
00:42:49.609 --> 00:42:58.209
right so yeah this is a hugely underseen but hugely influential film for you
00:42:58.209 --> 00:43:01.589
know six decades absolutely i was.
00:43:01.589 --> 00:43:05.829
Thinking when i was re-watching it about how you
00:43:05.829 --> 00:43:11.989
know it has it's it's pegged to blaxploitation um just because it's you know
00:43:11.989 --> 00:43:18.189
it comes out in the 70s but there are just so many films from like just you
00:43:18.189 --> 00:43:21.649
know there's like a real tributary or like river system that is like flowed
00:43:21.649 --> 00:43:25.649
from this movie like the la rebellion films films,
00:43:25.649 --> 00:43:30.589
Spike Lee and John Singleton, you know, his own son,
00:43:30.829 --> 00:43:33.089
Mario Van Peebles,
00:43:33.889 --> 00:43:39.849
Bush Mama, that was one that was really front of mind for me.
00:43:39.989 --> 00:43:42.249
And then even some of the,
00:43:43.368 --> 00:43:49.188
stuff in the 90s and i forget what they call that like a cohort of black filmmakers but like.
00:43:49.188 --> 00:43:50.848
Like boys in the hood yeah.
00:43:50.848 --> 00:43:58.848
It's that group but it's like like julia dash and um cassie lemons oh i think
00:43:58.848 --> 00:44:02.948
they called it like new new black cinema i think that's what it was called that wave.
00:44:02.948 --> 00:44:10.368
And and even watermelon woman which is like a queer set in philly homage to
00:44:10.368 --> 00:44:17.948
yeah to watermelon man by cheryl is like thompson thomas something yeah,
00:44:19.508 --> 00:44:22.468
it there there the it does have its
00:44:22.468 --> 00:44:26.188
as you said tributaries kind of everywhere and
00:44:26.188 --> 00:44:30.468
even in its casting right because the biker is
00:44:30.468 --> 00:44:38.008
john amos who was in all of these like new black hollywood movies of the 90s
00:44:38.008 --> 00:44:44.648
right you'd recognize him as cleo mcdowell from coming to america the the guy
00:44:44.648 --> 00:44:47.628
who owns the mcdowell's yeah.
00:44:47.628 --> 00:44:57.188
Uh-huh okay um and i also thought of um barry jenkins first film uh medicine for melancholy.
00:44:57.188 --> 00:45:00.108
Medicine for melancholy a movie i love yeah
00:45:00.108 --> 00:45:03.448
but ultimately this is this is about the the apex
00:45:03.448 --> 00:45:06.388
of movies and music and i think everything
00:45:06.388 --> 00:45:14.888
that we said about the mixed genres and the influences and and also being influential
00:45:14.888 --> 00:45:25.148
is true about come on feet right it is part jazz part avant-garde part funk part soul part gospel,
00:45:26.848 --> 00:45:32.968
really dissonant i want to hear more i want to learn more about this this song rachel yeah.
00:45:32.968 --> 00:45:40.168
This song was actually featured on an album that uh van peoples made uh called
00:45:40.168 --> 00:45:46.328
ain't supposed to die a natural death and that came out in 1970 so technically a year before.
00:45:46.328 --> 00:45:50.188
Yeah and um.
00:45:50.188 --> 00:45:55.588
Van peoples Van Peebles even made an album prior to this in 69 called Brer Soul.
00:45:55.968 --> 00:46:01.548
In 71, he reprised Come On Feet to appear in Sweet Sweetback.
00:46:01.748 --> 00:46:12.108
And he describes, I cut a quote from this great interview that I keep referencing from 2008.
00:46:12.268 --> 00:46:14.548
And I just want to read this real quick.
00:46:15.728 --> 00:46:19.688
So Van Peebles was talking about how the music actually came out.
00:46:20.427 --> 00:46:24.087
For this film, but he kind of like goes, he takes it back and he talks about
00:46:24.087 --> 00:46:28.347
his childhood. He's like, I'll tell you my life story in five minutes.
00:46:28.927 --> 00:46:35.707
I was born in Chicago. I was a child prodigy, and I finished college when I was 20 years old.
00:46:36.227 --> 00:46:39.847
But to finish college because my parents were poor, I took a course.
00:46:40.067 --> 00:46:43.667
I didn't know what it was, but it meant I was an officer in the US Air Force.
00:46:43.827 --> 00:46:45.467
So when I was 20, I was flying jets.
00:46:45.667 --> 00:46:49.307
I did that for a number of years. Then I lived in Mexico where Mario was born.
00:46:49.547 --> 00:46:53.527
Then I lived in San Francisco and I fell in love. Well, I'd always been in love with cinema.
00:46:53.767 --> 00:46:57.407
I wrote a book and someone got on my cable car. He was a grit man,
00:46:57.607 --> 00:47:00.407
you know, so who used to work the cable cars.
00:47:00.827 --> 00:47:03.587
And the guy said, you know, your book is just like a movie.
00:47:04.347 --> 00:47:06.267
Shit. I said, I'll go in the movies.
00:47:07.207 --> 00:47:10.747
But there's one little thing. I didn't have any music. I couldn't afford anyone.
00:47:10.907 --> 00:47:14.987
So I numbered all the keys on the piano because I couldn't read or write music,
00:47:15.047 --> 00:47:17.967
so I wrote the numbers, and then I played the music.
00:47:18.187 --> 00:47:22.067
However, when I finished my films, Hollywood wouldn't take a black person to work.
00:47:22.307 --> 00:47:26.267
So I was discouraged, and I went to Holland, where I was getting a PhD.
00:47:26.567 --> 00:47:32.047
I'm an astronomer and mathematician also. This guy, he's like a true renaissance person.
00:47:32.967 --> 00:47:36.307
And while I was there, the French Cinémathèque saw my work and said I was a
00:47:36.307 --> 00:47:39.027
genius. Finally, I thought, someone who understands me.
00:47:39.727 --> 00:47:44.707
So I went to Paris and made my first feature there after being what we call a clochard.
00:47:45.147 --> 00:47:48.487
I used to beg in the streets and little by little, I learned to speak French.
00:47:48.587 --> 00:47:53.107
Then I wrote the score and I made another movie later called Sweet Sweetback's Badass Song.
00:47:53.287 --> 00:47:57.187
And I wrote the music for that and I started taking and that started taking off.
00:47:57.287 --> 00:48:00.807
At the time, what we called the Black Revolution was going on in America,
00:48:00.887 --> 00:48:02.527
but the music was not revolutionary.
00:48:02.847 --> 00:48:06.587
It was still blues or just straight jazz. None of it talked about what was really
00:48:06.587 --> 00:48:10.827
going on. And since I couldn't sing, I just talked about what was going on myself.
00:48:11.067 --> 00:48:14.167
And this became hip hop and rap. And that's the story.
00:48:16.901 --> 00:48:22.981
He once again he paints himself as this legendary person and i believe that
00:48:22.981 --> 00:48:27.641
he did all the all of these things but he's just like and then i went to the moon it's fine right.
00:48:27.641 --> 00:48:35.801
Yeah so earth wind and fire comes into this because van piebel's secretary was
00:48:35.801 --> 00:48:39.521
apparently dating one of the band members and convinced him to contact them
00:48:39.521 --> 00:48:43.501
about performing the music for the film earth wind and fire around this time
00:48:43.501 --> 00:48:47.541
put out their debut self-titled but still still no one really knew who they were.
00:48:47.541 --> 00:48:52.721
Yeah they were all living in like one apartment together right which is hilarious
00:48:52.721 --> 00:48:59.061
when you think all of earth wind and fire like arguing over who ate the last of the cereal yeah.
00:48:59.061 --> 00:49:01.201
There's like six of them um in the.
00:49:01.201 --> 00:49:04.141
Yeah there's a lot of them and.
00:49:04.141 --> 00:49:08.541
Something i thought was super interesting. I mean, if nothing else,
00:49:08.721 --> 00:49:16.601
Melvin Van Peebles is innovative in terms of his approach to everything for better or worse,
00:49:16.781 --> 00:49:22.661
because he used the soundtrack to the movie effectively to help promote the
00:49:22.661 --> 00:49:28.341
film on the radio, because he realized that advertising was incredibly expensive,
00:49:28.541 --> 00:49:31.561
but you could play music on the radio for free.
00:49:31.681 --> 00:49:37.161
So he releases the soundtrack track before the movie comes out and uses it on
00:49:37.161 --> 00:49:41.121
the radio to like build anticipation of the film's release and build awareness
00:49:41.121 --> 00:49:44.901
which is what we do today yeah right so that worked and.
00:49:44.901 --> 00:49:49.401
It turns out that melvin van peoples paid earth wind and fire with a check that
00:49:49.401 --> 00:49:54.701
later bounced and so to this day earth wind and fire has not been paid for their
00:49:54.701 --> 00:49:56.861
work on sweet sweet back i mean.
00:49:56.861 --> 00:49:59.501
They're probably probably not hurting for it.
00:49:59.501 --> 00:50:05.341
They're okay that but that's why the hell's angels get paid up front you know he.
00:50:05.341 --> 00:50:08.461
Also said congratulating himself
00:50:08.461 --> 00:50:11.881
basically before this music even
00:50:11.881 --> 00:50:14.981
in hollywood was not used as a selling tool music came
00:50:14.981 --> 00:50:17.801
after the film even if hollywood bought
00:50:17.801 --> 00:50:20.701
a broadway musical they'd bring it out as a movie and then
00:50:20.701 --> 00:50:23.561
maybe bring out the album since i had no money i
00:50:23.561 --> 00:50:26.881
had this idea boing oh shit
00:50:26.881 --> 00:50:30.921
it would cost you a lot of money for a 15 second commercial but a song would
00:50:30.921 --> 00:50:34.521
run for three minutes so i wrote the song and gave it the same title as the
00:50:34.521 --> 00:50:40.321
film um so he i guess he's not talking about um come on come on feet he's talking
00:50:40.321 --> 00:50:44.561
about sweet sweet back yeah that's the the title song the.
00:50:44.561 --> 00:50:45.681
Title theme that.
00:50:45.681 --> 00:50:50.841
The title theme right jazz medley he He said, nobody had thought of it.
00:50:50.941 --> 00:50:53.901
So then I was a little bit known by this time.
00:50:54.041 --> 00:50:57.861
All the DJs, the black DJs and the hip white DJs were playing my music.
00:50:57.961 --> 00:50:59.461
It was being plugged all over.
00:50:59.721 --> 00:51:03.381
Then because of the revolutionary aspect of the film, the Black Panthers made
00:51:03.381 --> 00:51:06.161
it required viewing as you were talking about earlier.
00:51:07.201 --> 00:51:09.421
And so ever since then.
00:51:10.370 --> 00:51:13.350
Melvin says every piece of shit film has got a soundtrack.
00:51:13.350 --> 00:51:16.310
Hell yeah he also um
00:51:16.310 --> 00:51:19.150
kind of viewed music or says that
00:51:19.150 --> 00:51:22.370
he viewed music like in a different way than most filmmakers this
00:51:22.370 --> 00:51:25.270
is from the outlaw bible of american literature he said most
00:51:25.270 --> 00:51:29.370
filmmakers look at a feature in terms of image and story effects
00:51:29.370 --> 00:51:32.510
and music are strictly secondary considerations very few
00:51:32.510 --> 00:51:35.570
look at the film with sound considered as a
00:51:35.570 --> 00:51:38.450
creative third dimension so i calculate the scenario
00:51:38.450 --> 00:51:41.530
as in the the story in such a way that can be that
00:51:41.530 --> 00:51:44.890
sound can be used as an integral part of the film which i think there
00:51:44.890 --> 00:51:47.690
is something to that that i don't think he was necessarily the
00:51:47.690 --> 00:51:54.490
first person to ever do that but he definitely took that as a uh an avenue for
00:51:54.490 --> 00:52:00.370
storytelling in a way that the studio pictures especially would never right
00:52:00.370 --> 00:52:05.590
the big melodramas of the 50s would have like a love I'm thinking of something
00:52:05.590 --> 00:52:07.590
like Written on the Wind by Douglas Sirk.
00:52:08.170 --> 00:52:11.370
The movie's Douglas Sirk, the song. I don't remember who sings it.
00:52:11.490 --> 00:52:19.410
But yeah, it wouldn't be like this is the soundtrack tells the story of the movie in melody.
00:52:20.490 --> 00:52:27.410
And the soundtrack did really well on the charts. It was released by Stax Records.
00:52:27.970 --> 00:52:32.650
And it went to number 13 on Billboard's top R&B albums chart.
00:52:33.390 --> 00:52:33.990
Wow.
00:52:35.170 --> 00:52:36.930
Pretty pretty impressive.
00:52:36.930 --> 00:52:44.310
Yeah it's interesting um i i mean it was 2008 i feel like around like,
00:52:45.610 --> 00:52:52.270
2008 that was like the we were over like the 30th anniversary of hip-hop so
00:52:52.270 --> 00:52:55.550
there were a lot of people who were just like yeah you know i was there you
00:52:55.550 --> 00:53:01.150
know i was at the first party right um And so I kind of take that interview with that in mind.
00:53:01.230 --> 00:53:05.770
But the fact that he was in Los Angeles does
00:53:05.770 --> 00:53:13.630
kind of give some credence to the narrative he's providing in terms of combining
00:53:13.630 --> 00:53:21.930
spoken word and jazz and funk drums.
00:53:21.930 --> 00:53:24.090
Because, I mean, this was happening in a lot of ways, you know,
00:53:24.130 --> 00:53:30.270
hip hop is like Chicago radio DJs who kind of like told jokes and like toasted
00:53:30.270 --> 00:53:34.190
on air and also like, you know, like Jamaican music.
00:53:35.898 --> 00:53:43.178
Like djs and in the bronx and blah blah it's like super composite but you know we didn't have,
00:53:44.118 --> 00:53:47.038
as connected of like mass media culture back
00:53:47.038 --> 00:53:50.018
then so if you were in los
00:53:50.018 --> 00:53:52.678
angeles or wherever he was recording this and you were
00:53:52.678 --> 00:53:55.838
like yeah i'm talking over this um like that
00:53:55.838 --> 00:53:58.598
i could see how that would no one's ever done yeah i could
00:53:58.598 --> 00:54:01.858
see how that would feel unique even though my
00:54:01.858 --> 00:54:06.698
like inner scholars like oh well there were the like the watts prophets who
00:54:06.698 --> 00:54:10.418
were like the they were the last poets for the west coast and i think they're
00:54:10.418 --> 00:54:15.118
they were performing in like 1969 so maybe you heard the watts prophets but
00:54:15.118 --> 00:54:21.678
still sometimes it doesn't matter who does it first matters who does it most recognizably that's.
00:54:21.678 --> 00:54:28.118
A that's a good point because like you know a lot A lot of our first early hip-hop
00:54:28.118 --> 00:54:31.158
songs is Rapper's Delight, right?
00:54:31.258 --> 00:54:37.878
It's one of the biggest early crossover rap hits, right?
00:54:38.018 --> 00:54:47.758
And that's by the Sugarhill Gang, which is named after a 1974 blaxploitation film called Sugarhill.
00:54:47.758 --> 00:54:52.858
And so even if he didn't directly invent rap,
00:54:53.118 --> 00:54:59.598
let's say, or popularize it, the ripple effects of Sweet Sweetback make its
00:54:59.598 --> 00:55:02.958
way back to the hip hop community numerous times.
00:55:02.958 --> 00:55:06.298
And also there is this really closely tied
00:55:06.298 --> 00:55:09.598
hip-hop and cinema you know
00:55:09.598 --> 00:55:12.638
hip-hop acts tied with cinema i'm thinking of like the wu-tang clan
00:55:12.638 --> 00:55:15.558
and their obsession with kung fu movies
00:55:15.558 --> 00:55:20.778
and and samp and you know so many films there's so many uh hip-hop tracks like
00:55:20.778 --> 00:55:28.198
sample things from movies and so it is this like really nicely connected to
00:55:28.198 --> 00:55:32.658
two pieces two forms of art very nicely connected Yeah.
00:55:32.718 --> 00:55:33.538
Absolutely.
00:56:02.318 --> 00:56:03.478
And like, that's a big deal. So.
00:56:04.258 --> 00:56:09.798
And super fly is the year after this. I think it's like really close on the heels.
00:56:10.058 --> 00:56:10.758
Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:11.785 --> 00:56:13.565
Of sweet back it is 72.
00:56:13.565 --> 00:56:16.405
Yeah and like superfly that's gordon parks
00:56:16.405 --> 00:56:20.485
jr i think gordon parks directed shaft so
00:56:20.485 --> 00:56:24.585
there was already this kind of like lineage of fathers
00:56:24.585 --> 00:56:28.225
and sons kind of like making making movies
00:56:28.225 --> 00:56:33.825
and that's one thing that's interesting about um the black panther connection
00:56:33.825 --> 00:56:38.345
to the the making of the movie and the legacy of sweet back you know by the
00:56:38.345 --> 00:56:43.385
90s mario van people's directed a movie about the black panther party the movie
00:56:43.385 --> 00:56:46.525
is not good um it's kind of like super,
00:56:47.165 --> 00:56:50.945
it's not really for as formally adventurous as
00:56:50.945 --> 00:56:53.805
sweetback and it's just kind of like filled with
00:56:53.805 --> 00:56:57.345
like conspiracy theories it's like basically it's
00:56:57.345 --> 00:57:01.565
supposed to be a period piece but it's really just like this it's
00:57:01.565 --> 00:57:07.665
just talking to like 90s zeitgeist and anxiety about like the crack epidemic
00:57:07.665 --> 00:57:15.705
basically um so it's just like full of anachronisms but um you know just another
00:57:15.705 --> 00:57:21.005
another tributary in the sweetback river system you know and.
00:57:21.005 --> 00:57:26.725
Like the the one of the things about blaxploitation films that i think were
00:57:26.725 --> 00:57:32.425
influenced by both shaft and sweetback is like the single artist soundtrack
00:57:32.425 --> 00:57:37.005
So Curtis Mayfield does super fly Nina Simone does trouble man.
00:57:37.085 --> 00:57:44.925
And these are like soundtracks that are held up as like better than the movies that they were a part of.
00:57:44.965 --> 00:57:45.965
Yeah. Right.
00:57:45.985 --> 00:57:52.625
And it's, so it's like really more influential in music than in cinema. These films. Yeah.
00:57:52.725 --> 00:57:58.185
That's a funny thing about super fly in particular. Apparently Isaac Hayes or
00:57:58.185 --> 00:58:00.305
excuse me, Curtis Mayfield was the,
00:58:01.270 --> 00:58:04.090
like seeing the the dailies i
00:58:04.090 --> 00:58:07.070
guess that's the term from the movie yeah the rushes yeah and
00:58:07.070 --> 00:58:10.070
he was like this movie is like glorifying drug dealing
00:58:10.070 --> 00:58:16.130
so in his like compositions i forget the the the name the main song but he's
00:58:16.130 --> 00:58:22.970
like pusher man yeah he's like no this is pusher man baby this is meant to be
00:58:22.970 --> 00:58:27.370
like critical and like like commentary um so it was interesting and he,
00:58:27.990 --> 00:58:33.570
so like the movie ends up you know using that music but he envisioned it as
00:58:33.570 --> 00:58:40.330
like a corrective like no this is too cool we need to push back against this no pun intended yeah.
00:58:40.330 --> 00:58:47.870
I i love this era this era of filmmaking is like oh i love it so much i have
00:58:47.870 --> 00:58:50.070
nothing smart to say about it other than i just love it.
00:58:50.070 --> 00:58:54.110
I i mean just watching the
00:58:54.110 --> 00:58:57.150
scene i do love the
00:58:57.150 --> 00:59:00.870
dissonant sort of harpsichord sounds which i
00:59:00.870 --> 00:59:04.090
think that's what the what what they're using um but
00:59:04.090 --> 00:59:07.090
yeah like i really i
00:59:07.090 --> 00:59:11.270
really enjoy any scoring that is
00:59:11.270 --> 00:59:14.050
like really plugged into the feeling of like what the
00:59:14.050 --> 00:59:18.870
character is experiencing like one of my favorite things is like Hans Zimmer's
00:59:18.870 --> 00:59:22.930
Interstellar with like the sort of tick-tocking of the like the clock that's
00:59:22.930 --> 00:59:27.890
like symbolizing how you know how much time is a resource and how it's running
00:59:27.890 --> 00:59:31.330
out and I and I really love the,
00:59:33.510 --> 00:59:39.350
anxiety spiking dissonant harpsichords that come through especially like in
00:59:39.350 --> 00:59:43.750
this moment in this stretch of time where Sweetback is running and running,
00:59:44.790 --> 00:59:49.710
yeah like i just thought it was really effective and it was it was really cool
00:59:49.710 --> 00:59:54.410
like i have honestly like that um aviv is the one here with the film degree
00:59:54.410 --> 01:00:02.930
and and this is for me like like a almost like a really cool film rabbit hole to jump down and.
01:00:02.930 --> 01:00:06.550
The use of music where you're talking about this like kind of dissonance that's
01:00:06.550 --> 01:00:10.470
reflective of the character like they do this throughout Throughout the movie too.
01:00:10.590 --> 01:00:14.390
Where it seems like they're almost playing two music cues. At the same time.
01:00:14.950 --> 01:00:19.890
They're like overlapping in a weird way. And so it becomes this like.
01:00:20.270 --> 01:00:22.690
It's like shoving. The anxiety.
01:00:24.130 --> 01:00:26.990
Down the audience's throat. In a way that like.
01:00:28.481 --> 01:00:33.921
Is not preachy but it is like i'm gonna make you feel like this like you're at my mercy.
01:00:33.921 --> 01:00:39.361
Yeah and you know i think it's like it's also like very multiple in terms of
01:00:39.361 --> 01:00:41.081
you know you get these hymns,
01:00:41.921 --> 01:00:46.961
you get these chants you get this like jazz melody that sometimes sounds discordant
01:00:46.961 --> 01:00:52.521
but sometimes sounds very smooth and kind of cool you know of course you know
01:00:52.521 --> 01:00:55.681
we don't have that much insight into Sweetback's interiority,
01:00:55.701 --> 01:00:57.481
but there's this coolness to him.
01:00:57.661 --> 01:01:00.781
So even as he's running from the police,
01:01:01.661 --> 01:01:08.001
especially in that scene with Come on Feet, which eventually bleeds into the
01:01:08.001 --> 01:01:15.401
title theme, I don't know, there's something not sardonic, but kind of naughty about...
01:01:15.401 --> 01:01:18.001
Not naughty, it's like...
01:01:18.001 --> 01:01:18.981
Irreverence.
01:01:18.981 --> 01:01:23.441
Yeah, there's something fun. This guy is tired, he is worn down,
01:01:23.441 --> 01:01:26.701
But he's also evading them.
01:01:26.821 --> 01:01:32.001
The cops are very slapstick, almost cartoonish.
01:01:32.061 --> 01:01:37.781
Their violence is real, but they are so dead set on getting him and so incompetent.
01:01:37.781 --> 01:01:41.481
When he gets shot, it almost seems accidental. accidental so there's
01:01:41.481 --> 01:01:44.441
this real like i guess he's like
01:01:44.441 --> 01:01:47.221
an escape artist in a way um and it's like
01:01:47.221 --> 01:01:50.361
so you get that strain but you also get that relief and
01:01:50.361 --> 01:01:53.401
joy and like pleasure and i
01:01:53.401 --> 01:01:56.081
think that's like coming through in the in the
01:01:56.081 --> 01:01:58.801
songs depending on what part of it is played
01:01:58.801 --> 01:02:02.461
because if you listen to the title theme by itself it is
01:02:02.461 --> 01:02:05.561
like you know just like a little skronky jazz
01:02:05.561 --> 01:02:08.501
number um but the way
01:02:08.501 --> 01:02:11.261
it's like chopped and kind of
01:02:11.261 --> 01:02:17.401
like made to just kind of abruptly swerve into other sounds or just like cut
01:02:17.401 --> 01:02:21.301
into like dialogue that's like really loud it's like when you're watching tv
01:02:21.301 --> 01:02:25.201
and you're watching a movie on tv and then a commercial comes on and it's like
01:02:25.201 --> 01:02:30.061
a million decibels louder yeah super.
01:02:30.061 --> 01:02:34.421
Interesting like almost like data moshing right where like Like,
01:02:34.421 --> 01:02:39.181
you know, when the cop fires the gun in Beatles' ear and, like,
01:02:39.201 --> 01:02:41.361
the colors change, right?
01:02:41.421 --> 01:02:45.841
It's like he's using every little nook and cranny of the filmmaking process
01:02:45.841 --> 01:02:49.901
to help tell his story, including this, like, incredibly good track.
01:02:50.101 --> 01:02:50.381
Mm-hmm.
01:02:51.635 --> 01:02:57.635
Thank you so much, Stephen. You have an open invite to come back literally anytime
01:02:57.635 --> 01:03:00.055
you ever want to talk about music.
01:03:00.455 --> 01:03:01.135
Thank you.
01:03:01.275 --> 01:03:04.475
I second that. Thank you so much for being here with us.
01:03:04.475 --> 01:03:08.575
Yeah, it's always a pleasure. Like I said, I can't wait to watch movies and
01:03:08.575 --> 01:03:11.075
find more episodes, you know, potentially.
01:03:11.375 --> 01:03:13.035
And tell us about your book.
01:03:13.295 --> 01:03:19.075
Yes. My book, Liquid Snakes, came out August 8th. It's a speculative thriller
01:03:19.075 --> 01:03:22.595
about a fictional CDC investigation in Atlanta.
01:03:23.095 --> 01:03:25.395
It's funny, I think.
01:03:26.595 --> 01:03:33.355
It's dark and it's, you know, it's got coffee. It's got jokes.
01:03:33.455 --> 01:03:36.955
It's got a fake Rolling Stone article.
01:03:37.095 --> 01:03:41.995
So I had a lot of fun writing it. It's also got a fake Vice article.
01:03:44.135 --> 01:03:47.155
Yeah, I was really playing with form.
01:03:47.755 --> 01:03:52.295
Published by Soft Skull. Paperback is out later this summer,
01:03:52.375 --> 01:03:56.015
but it's available in hardcover now.
01:03:56.135 --> 01:03:58.595
It's available in large print later this month.
01:03:59.275 --> 01:04:04.315
I've also got a short story coming out in Joyland Magazine, April 25th.
01:04:04.335 --> 01:04:07.615
Thank you so much, Steven. And thank you all for listening.
01:04:08.875 --> 01:04:12.875
Tune in next week for another episode of In Sync. We are edited by Katie Yoner,
01:04:13.035 --> 01:04:16.935
production coordinator Kyle Bosch, associate producer Lou Barron. Hi, Lou.
01:04:17.395 --> 01:04:21.815
Social media producer Dayal Stamfli executive produced by Tommy West original
01:04:21.815 --> 01:04:26.795
music by Taylor Barefoot we are a pro-Taylor podcast NSYNC is a production of
01:04:26.795 --> 01:04:30.435
Gotham West Studios and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram TikTok,
01:04:30.775 --> 01:04:35.935
everywhere at the NSYNC pod we will see you next time.