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Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)
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Information
- Year
- 1971
- Runtime
- 97 min.
- Director
- Melvin Van Peebles
- Genres
- Crime, Drama, Thriller
- Rating *
- 5.5
- Votes *
- 2,390
- Checks
- 1,846
- Favs
- 52
- Dislikes
- 76
- Favs/checks
- 2.8% (1:36)
- Favs/dislikes
- 1:1
Top comments
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Public Enemy
Even if you didn't like the film, read up on it's history. This isn't something like Brakhage making stuff safely. Instead, you have a director doing his own stunts, getting an STD from a scene, working with motorcycle gangs, and being forced to arm himself and the crew because it wasn't a union film. 11 years 9 months ago -
Shingwauk
Does no one have a problem with the scene with the prostitute having sex with a child! 6 years 7 months ago -
Siskoid
Blaxploitation meets art house in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, a historically and culturally significant film, but no easy watch, opening as it does with a disturbing pedophilic sequence where young Sweetback has simulated sex with a grown woman (you've been warned). Director and star Melvin Van Peebles was evidently inspired by the French New Wave in his approach to editing, but there are so many interesting effects that if I were a film maker, I'd want to perpetually "quote" this movie. It's certainly rough, guerilla film making, with a lot of non-actors, and the plot is thin and secondary to creating transgressive, hallucinatory vignettes. Van Peebles is working in the same mode as John Waters, but with righteous anger rather than a comic approach. The key is in the title. This is jazz cinema, a violent, sex-fueled ton poem set to a great groove and not to be understood in the usual narrative terms. It would be true to say that I admire more than like it. 2 years 9 months ago
Friends
Login to see which of your friends have seen this movie!In 12 official lists
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This movie ranks #7 in Slate's The Black Film Canon
Slate's The Black Film C…
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This movie ranks #36 in Tim Dirks's 100+ Most Controversial Films of All-Time
Tim Dirks's 100+ Most Co…
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This movie ranks #85 in BFI's 100 American Independent Films
BFI's 100 American Indep…
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This movie ranks #215 in Harvard's Suggested Film Viewing: Narrative Films
Harvard's Suggested Film…
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This movie ranks #278 in Jennifer Eiss's 500 Essential Cult Movies
Jennifer Eiss's 500 Esse…
278 -
This movie ranks #293 in 366 Weird Movies
366 Weird Movies
293 -
This movie ranks #488 in TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest Films: 1001-2500
TSPDT's 1,000 Greatest F…
488 -
This movie ranks #527 in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die
1001 Movies You Must See…
527 -
This movie ranks #851 in The New York Times's Book of Movies
The New York Times's Boo…
851 -
This movie ranks #854 in Library of Congress's National Film Registry
Library of Congress's Na…
854 -
This movie ranks #870 in The Guardian's 1000 Films to See Before You Die
The Guardian's 1000 Film…
870 -
This movie ranks #1332 in The Criterion Collection
The Criterion Collection
1332