A Giant Of Black Cinema, Melvin Van Peebles Dies At 89.
Melvin Van Peebles, a well-known filmmaker, died at his home in Manhattan on Tuesday evening. Watermelon Man (1970) and Sweet Sweetback’s Baadas (1971).
In 1995, he co-wrote and directed the film Panther with his son Mario Van Peebles.
That year, the older Van Peebles told NPR that the video was a history lesson for children who were too young to remember the Panthers’ community engagement.
“But it’s more than a history lesson,” he said, “because history can tell so many tales.” “This historical lesson also inspires young people to get involved in their communities.”
Melvin Van Peebles encouraged a new generation of young filmmakers to become involved in the industry.
His early films made on a shoestring budget and filled with politically-tinged, controversial comedy.
In Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, he played the lead,
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although he just had a few words. In 2008, he told NPR that he was toying with preconceptions and turning them upside down.
He also justified casting his then-young son in a part that needed a sex scene with an older lady.
He told NPR’s Michel Martin, “Business is Business.”
“What on earth are you talking about?” He didn’t seem to be harmed or injured in any way.”
In Chicago, Van Peebles was born in 1932. With films that were bitingly humorous,
sexually swaggering, and sometimes violent,
he helped pave the way for the renegade genre known as blaxploitation, which featured Black heroes.
Sweetback was initially classified X because it featured hustlers and revolutionaries as heroes.
It also turned out to be a big financial hit.
The director was a multi-talented individual who dabbled in astronomy and options trading as a sideline.
His death occurred only days before the New York Film Festival’s 50th-anniversary commemoration of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.
“Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films,” a box set from the Criterion Collection, schedule to release next week.
The filmmakers’ death report through social media by the business.
“In an unmatched career marked by unrelenting creativity,
inexhaustible curiosity, and spiritual sensitivity, Melvin Van Peebles left an everlasting imprint on the worldwide cultural landscape via his films, books, plays, and music,”
according to a statement released by the Criterion Collection.
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A Giant Of Black Cinema, Melvin Van Peebles Dies At 89
