Blaxploitation figure Melvin Van Peebles and father of actor Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday night at his Manhattan home. He was 89 years old. His family announced his death in
a statement broadcast by
Criterion Collection and by the American trade press.
“Dad knew that black images matter,” writes his son Mario Van Peebles in the communication. If a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is a movie worth? We want the success that we see, therefore we need to see ourselves liberated. True liberation did not mean emulating the mentality of the colonizer. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people ”.
Highest-grossing independent film in history
With Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, released in 1971, Melvin Van Peebles has established himself as one of the pioneers of black American cinema. This low-budget work follows a man who performs in pornographic shows and kills two racist police officers for beating up a Black Panthers activist.
“I didn’t even know I had an inheritance,” he confided to the New York Times in 2010. “I do what I want to do”. Sweet Sweetback, which he wrote, directed and financed, and in which he stars, had only been released in two theaters but thanks to word of mouth it ended up grossing $ 10 million, making the independent film the most profitable in history at the time, according to the Hollywood Reporter.