Newsgroup: it.arti.cinema
Titolo: [rassegna-roma] blaxploitation, siamo ai pezzi forti

bene bene...
i due prossimi venerdi sono imperdibili:
venerdi 3 dicembre
sweet sweetback bad asss song (1971 melvin van pebbles) versione originale sottotitotala in italiano 
da AP, se qualcosa non va prendetevala con lui :)
venerdi 10 dicembre
SUPERFLY  (gordon parks junior)
introdurrano il fim:
il DUKA, le edizioni shake e dagli Stati Uniti (in realta' vive a berlino) Darius James autore del libro 
blaxploitation  e di un manuale di riti woodo per conquistare le femmine bianche.
Dopo il film 2 pezzi grossi,  ai piatti  POL-G e BOB CORSI selezioneranno funk, disco, soul, 
hiphop..

 da AP, se qualcosa non va prendetevala con lui :)
Andate a vederlo, non e' un bel film,ma e' un film molto importante per i
suoi tempi, riporto una cosa che ho trovato in rete, se riesco la traduco
poi.
         "SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG" (USA, 1971)
                 A Film Review by James Kendrick
                        *** (out of ****)Director: Melvin Van Peebles ||
Screenplay: Melvin Van Peebles || Stars: Melvin 
Van Peebles (Sweetback), Simon Chuckster (Beetle), Hubert Scales (Mu-Mu),
John 
Dullaghan (Commissioner), Rhetta Hughes (Old Girl Friend), Mario Van
Peebles 
(Young Sweetback), John Amos (Motorcycle Guy) || MPAA Rating: X
Melvin Van Peebles' "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" was a watershed
moment in the history of American cinema and the black movement. It was
released less than a decade after the Civil Rights Movement had begun and
almost twenty years before the Rodney King incident. Its violent and
highly sexualized revenge tale of a macho black hustler fighting back
against white oppression and winning was something that had never been
seen on an American movie screen before. In style, content, and how it was
conceived and produced, "Sweet Sweetback" was a cinematic revolution,
whether or not one agrees with its subject matter. Van Peebles, a black
American who first gained recognition by writing novels in France, built
"Sweet Sweetback" from the ground up almost entirely by himself. Because
no studio would dare fund such a film, he was forced to raise all the
money himself. The movie ended up costing about $500,000, part of which
was put up by none other than Bill Cosby. Van Peebles cut costs by hiring
non-union labor and taking on most of the film's responsibilities himself.
He wrote the script, scored the music, edited and directed the film, as
well as starred in the central role. He was also a brilliant entrepreneur
who always found a way to make an extra buck. For instance, when the MPPA
slapped the film with a dreaded X-rating, Van Peebles not only threatened
to bring a lawsuit against Jack Valenti and the MPAA, but he also
developed a little marketing scheme: he coined the phrases "Rated X by an
all-white jury," which he put on the movie posters to help advertise the
film. He also printed the phrase on tee-shirts which he had no problem
selling. The storyline in "Sweet Sweetback" is deceptively simple. It
takes place in Los Angeles, and Van Peebles stars as the title character,
a tough male hustler of few words who grew up in a brothel, and makes
money by doing what he does best: having sex. One day, he agrees to go
with a couple of amiable white cops down to the station to make it look
like they're bringing in suspects on a politically-charged case involving
murder. However, on the way to the station the cops arrest a young black
revolutionary named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales), who they proceed to beat
viciously. Acting out of complete impulse rather than political
motivation, Sweetback fights back and beats the cops to the brink of
death. The rest of the film follows Sweetback as he evades the cops on his
way to eventual escape in Mexico. Although the repetition of watching
Sweetback run gets a little old by the end of the film, this plot allows
Van Peebles' camera to roam the darker side of L.A. - the ghettos, alleys,
and back-street whorehouses that other films had always overlooked. Van
Peebles' entire point in making the movie was to secure on celluloid a
vision of the black experience in America that other filmmakers had
ignored. At the beginning of "Sweet Sweetback," he offers this epigraph,
which is a traditional prologue used in medieval times when a messenger
brought bad news: "Sire, these lines are not an homage to brutality that
the artist has invented, but a hymn from the mouth of reality..." Van
Peebles wanted to make sure that his vision was one of reality, not of
exaggeration. Of course, with today's abundance of rap and hip hop music
that sings the same ode to black inner-city life, as well as films by
Spike Lee, John Singleton, and the Hughes Brothers, "Sweet Sweetback"
doesn't seem all that revolutionary. It is important to remember that this
film must be viewed in the context and time period in which it was made.
At that time, "Sweet Sweetback" was so controversial that only two
theaters in the entire United States would play it. Distributors were
petrified of a film that, in Van Peebles' words, gave the black audience
"a chance to see some of their own fantasies acted out - about rising out
of the mud and kicking ass." Of course, once it caught on, it caught on
big. "Sweet Sweetback" is now considered to be the film that kicked off
the blaxploitation era, although Van Peebles disassociates "Sweetback"
from other movies like "Shaft" (1972) and "The Mack" (1973), because those
were financed by big Hollywood studios. "Sweet Sweetback" is also the only
film deemed mandatory viewing by the Black Panthers. However, even if when
viewed from an African-American perspective, "Sweet Sweetback" is
certainly not without its controversies. When it was first released, an
article was published in "Ebony" magazine denouncing the film, while at
the same time the Black Panthers used an entire newsletter to praise it.
There have been arguments that the victory for Sweetback is really no
victory at all - beating cops and then running away to Mexico is nothing
to be proud of. Others have pointed out that Sweetback has little to say
throughout the film; he has no political motivations, and therefore the
violence and havoc he wreaks is not rooted in fundamental beliefs, but in
personal and selfish motives. Still others point to the cliché black
potency that stereotypes Sweetback as being good at nothing but having
sex, illustrated in a scene where he gains the respect of a white biker
group by bringing their female leader to orgasm. Nevertheless, a movie
like "Sweet Sweetback" cannot be made without conflicting points of view.
It is a revolutionary movie not because it's about one man's defiance, but
because it put front-and-center black issues that had never been dealt
with before. Until that point, American cinema was an almost exclusively
white domain, and with the exception of Sidney Poitier, all black actors
were relegated to specifically black roles that were important only in
relation to whites. The fact that "Sweet Sweetback" was a movie by black
about blacks, was something new (in the opening credits, Van Peebles lists
the starring actors as simply "The Black Community"). Van Peebles tells an
interesting story that goes a long way toward defining the difference
between "Sweet Sweetback" and all movies that had come before it. When the
movie first opened, he saw it in a theater next to an older woman. Near
the end of the film, when Sweetback is wounded by the police and stumbling
through the Southern California desert, she kept saying to herself, "Oh
Lord, let him die. Don't let them kill him. Let him die on his own." It
was so ingrained in her mind that death was imminent for any
African-American in a movie who rebelled against white authority, that she
couldn't even conceive of the possibility that the film might end with his
successful escape. And, of course, Sweetback does escape, and the screen
fills with the message: "Watch out! A baad asssss nigger is coming back to
collect some dues." Beyond the political aspects, "Sweet Sweetback" is an
entertaining picture, which Van Peebles always intended it to be. He
squeezed every drop out of his limited budget, and produced a film that,
although dated now, was technically fantastic at the time. He shot in
rough, documentary-like fashion, while also utilizing almost every visual
and aural trick his technology would allow him. He makes good use of older
techniques like split screens, freeze frames, reversed color schemes, and
overlapping images. The only time the film ever looks bad is during the
night sequences, because Van Peebles simply did not have the needed
equipment. Watching "Sweet Sweetback" more than twenty-five years after
its initial release, one realizes that it still has bite. Arguments can be
made that race relations in the United States have made quantum leaps
since the early seventies, but there are still problems that are reflected
in this film. But there is more to the film than its racial aspect. The
legacy of "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" is not only the plentiful
amount of art and music told from the African-American perspective, but
more importantly, the work of every artist who has fought to fund and
produce that which is important to him. ©1998 James Kendrick