Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a 1971 independent film written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles. It tells the picaresque story of a deprived black man on his flight from the white authority.
The film, funded and distributed outside of the Hollywood system, broke conventions with its visual style, as well as its content. It was a major success, and was credited by Variety magazine with inventing the blaxploitation genre, although it is more accurate to say that it demonstrated to Hollywood that films portraying "militant" Blacks could be highly profitable, leading to the creation of the genre. The movie itself does not easily fit into the genre.
Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, produced, edited, composed and starred in this powerful and inflammatory attack on White America. After the body of a black man is discovered, Sweetback helps two white 'acquaintances' in the police force to look good by agreeing to go with them to the station as a suspect. But he is forced to go on the run after brutally attacking the two policemen when they arrest and beat up a young black man. Written by David Claydon
