Huffing and puffing on an inflated tire headed toward shore, 75-year-old Melvin Van Peebles spots a woman holding a lantern in the distant shadows. As he approaches, she grows larger but hasn’t moved, and he begins to realize that it’s Lady Liberty, “the mother of all immigrants.” Van Peebles, blaxploitation’s founding father, is actually a 14-year-old posing as a 17-year-old escaping thugs in his latest feature film, Confessionsofa Ex-Doofus-ItchyFooted Mutha. The film screens tonight, Dec. 1, at MoMA along with La Permission (Story of a 3-Day Pass), which also screens Dec. 6, Van Peebles will receive the Gotham Award from the museum and IFP on Dec 2. Narrated by Van Peebles and originally created as a graphic novel, Confessions’ storyline recounts his youngerself's exploration of the world, in the realm of time travel and childhood themes. Well-traveled in real life, just how autobiographical is Van Peebles’s new film? “What are you trying to do, put me in jail?” he says when I ask, without delving into specifics. Though the filmmaker admits, quoting Tennyson on the topic of authenticity: “We’re part of all that we have met.”
It’s been almost 40 years since the box office success of Sweet Sweetback Badasssss Song (1971), the first-ever independent film to profit commercially and what Van Peebles claims, “changed everything” in the movie making industry. Sweetback boosted the cinematic black image and influenced the lead in films like Shaft, whose black protagonist was originally cast as a white character. Still, Van Peebles says that it's not “black” but, rather, “independent” cinema. Starring a younger-looking Van Peebles, a mustached black stallion runs from The Man after saving a Black Panther member from racist cops, hooking along the way—including live sex with a white woman to save himself from a lynching—all to a funk and soul soundtrack. However, beneath the heart of an eccentric entertainer lies a businessman. At the time, Van Peebles had a three-picture deal with Columbia Pictures (now Sony Pictures), but ended up financing the film independently (“it wasn’t my message to the world”), eventually grossing $15 million.
Years later, the motivations behind Van Peebles’ work remain the same with the stories he has a knack for telling—“I’m a preacher monkey,” he says—in pursuit of remedying earlier cinematic depictions of minorities which he found demeaning.
“The Asians: nah, nah, nah stupid. The Indian: ugh, ugh, ugh. The Black: bluh, bluh, bluh,” Van Peebles says, imitating comical stereotypes. “You know, I didn’t like that. [If] you don’t like it, change it”.
These days with the privilege of technology, filmmaking is a bit easier than the 35mm format of yore, though Van Peebles would argue the process is almost too simple without having to know the technical mechanics behind the equipment. Although he praises the advancement of technology, he says the difference is between the excess of a machine gun and the accuracy of a rifle. Unlike Sweetback’s day, Confessions features a DIY-style of superimposed actions.
However, cinema is only part of the Van Peebles puzzle. His many hats (Tony-nominated playwright, novelist, filmmaker, musician, to name a few) are as illustrious as the title of his films. Blaxploitations’ King of Cool has been the subject of acclaimed documentaries like, How to Eat Watermelon in White Company (And Enjoy It) (2005) and Badasssss! (2003), the story behind the making of Sweetback, by Hollywood actor and son Mario Van Peebles.
While recounting Van Peebles’ earlier days, one should never under any circumstances confuse the term with the phrase, “starting out,” usually associated with rookies. Before Tony’s and cinematic accolades, Van Peebles had worked odd jobs around the globe. He once flew jet bombers in the Air Force. At 25, he published a book of photos about his experience as a grip man for San Francisco cable cars. A passenger and fan of the book noticed him, which led to Van Peebles’ interest in film: “He says, ‘Your book is just like a movie.’ I said, ‘Shit, I’m going into movies.’”
Van Peebles eventually moved to Holland and, after a string of short films in France, tried his hand at Hollywood because he felt the community lacked minorities (“they threw me down a step”). After returning to Holland to pursue his alternative passion for complex mathematics, Van Peebles received rave reviews from the French, who “went ape shit,” according to him, for his films. He panhandled on the streets of Paris, sleeping on park benches until he learned the language (Van Peebles’s character in Confessions also slept on park benches to “save on rent”). He then became a crime reporter and obtained a director’s card as a French novelist (French law at the time granted director’s cards to writers). Van Peebles then made La Permission (The Story of a Three-Day Pass) (1968), about a black soldier who is granted a three-day pass for good behavior, and Watermelon Man (1970), the story of a white bigot who wakes up black (a black man in white face).
Although he’s still producing projects, Van Peebles does consider himself retired in a city he calls home – New York, the “center of the universe.” After three months in Mexico he says he was ready to “blow his brains out,” he says, while watching the sun rise and set. With no sign of stopping, he’s looking forward to a musical version of Sweetback, a possible road tour with a band, and “a lady friend [who] called and said her husband wasn’t going to be here in town so I’m going to work on that”.
In the living room of his Columbus Circle apartment, with classic tin ceiling and cerulean walls, Van Peebles introduces his interactive art collection – the back of a Volkswagen van that releases “fumes,” a framed blue Styrofoam canvas with wings entitled “Ghetto Mother’s Prayer” and a giant hot dog in a bun that operates as a filing cabinet. In the middle is a table modeled after a skylight entrance to a rooftop. Dressed in his signature Yoko Ono-esque glasses, red-and-white Nike dunks and red cap-like beret, Van Peebles is charismatic yet firm. As he elaborates about his collection, a sense of ageless childlike wonderment shines through the established exterior, revealing an unbridled humorist. Like his youthful portrayals in Confessions, Van Peebles in spirit could pass for the 17-year-old he wants to be. Heaven knows, he already has.
ManMan
