Directed by Melvin Van Peebles
11 Episodes
Director, writer, composer, actor, and one-man creative revolutionary Melvin Van Peebles jolted American independent cinema to new life with his explosive stylistic energy and unfiltered expression of Black consciousness. Though he undeniably altered the course of film history with the anarchic SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG, that pop-culture bombshell is just one piece of a remarkably varied career that also encompassed forays into European art cinema (THE STORY OF A THREE DAY PASS), mainstream Hollywood comedy (WATERMELON MAN), and Broadway musicals (DON’T PLAY US CHEAP). Each facet of Van Peebles’s renegade genius is on display in this tribute to a transformative artist whose caustic social observation, radical formal innovation, and uncompromising vision established a new cinematic model for Black creative independence.
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1:28:11Episode 1The Story of a Three Day Pass
Episode 1
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1967 • United States
Starring Harry Baird, Nicole Berger, Hal BravMelvin Van Peebles’s edgy, angsty, romantic first feature could never have been made in America. Unable to break into segregated Hollywood, Van Peebles decamped to France, taught himself the langu...
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1:39:57Episode 2Watermelon Man
Episode 2
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1970 • United States
Starring Godfrey Cambridge, Estelle Parsons, Howard CaineMelvin Van Peebles puts a spin on Franz Kafka’s THE METAMORPHOSIS in this provocative racial satire. Bigoted white insurance salesman Jeff Gerber (Godfrey Cambridge) has it made: he’s ...
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1:38:02Episode 3Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
Episode 3
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1971 • United States
Starring Melvin Van Peebles, Simon Chuckster, Hubert ScalesA landmark of Black and American independent cinema that would send shock waves through the culture, SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG was Melvin Van Peebles’s second feature film, a...
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1:42:25Episode 4Don’t Play Us Cheap
Episode 4
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1972 • United States
Starring Joe Keyes Jr., Rhetta Hughes, Avon LongMelvin Van Peebles’s film version of his own Tony Award–nominated Broadway musical is a bold blend of theater and nervy, New Wave–inflected cinematic invention. A cast of Black stage and screen...
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08:45Episode 6Three Pickup Men for Herrick
Episode 6
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1957 • United States
The second short film Melvin Van Peebles made in San Francisco before decamping for Europe is a striking portrait of a group of day laborers competing to secure a job.
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12:03Episode 7Les cinq cent balles
Episode 7
Directed by Melvin Van Peebles • 1961 • France
Made in 1961 in Paris, LES CINQ CENT BALLES is about a boy who tries to retrieve a five-hundred-franc note from a gutter.
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Melvin Van Peebles on THE STORY OF A THREE DAY PASS
Episode 8
This August 14, 1968, episode of the television program “Black Journal” features an interview with director Melvin Van Peebles, who was promoting the U.S. release of his first feature film, THE STORY OF A THREE DAY PASS.
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Melvin Van Peebles on SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG, 2004
Episode 9
This excerpted interview with director Melvin Van Peebles, conducted by his son filmmaker Mario Van Peebles, was recorded in 2004 for the Directors Guild of America’s Visual History Program.
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13:16Episode 10Melvin Van Peebles, 1971
Episode 10
In this segment from the television show “Detroit Tubeworks,” director Melvin Van Peebles promotes his film SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG on the occasion of its Detroit opening weekend, in 1971.
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Mario Van Peebles and Elvis Mitchell on SWEET SWEETBACK’S BAADASSSSS SONG
Episode 11
In this interview, recorded in 2021, filmmaker Mario Van Peebles shares with film critic Elvis Mitchell anecdotes about his father, director Melvin Van Peebles.
