Summary
Speaking by phone while on a train from New York to Washington, D.C., Van Peebles is a man literally on the move and in seemingly perpetual motion. Between post-production on one film ("Blackout") and in production on another ("Confession of a ExDoofus Mutha"), he commented on his life as depicted in the documentary.
On the strength of its critical acclaim, Van Peebles returned to America and made his first (and only) major studio film, "Watermelon Man" (starring Godfrey Cambridge), which helped him gather the money and connections it took to make "Sweet Sweetback's Baad Assess Song." Make no mistake, without his renegade example there would be no Spike Lee or any of the other New Jack filmmakers.After Sweetback's critical and commercial success, Van Peebles launched a recording career, making literate but streetwise albums that paved the way for rap and hip-hop in the early''70s, and staging a series of hit Broadway plays including "Don't Play Us Cheap" and "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death."See the full content of this document
Extract
Portrait of the Mvp
"I didn't see the type of things I wanted to see, so I did it myself."
Melvin Van Peebles, from "How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)."If nothing e...See the full content of this document
Sponsored links
