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Influential film-maker whose 1971 hit Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is credited with launching the blaxploitation genreIn his own words, the film-maker Melvin Van Peebles, who has died aged 89, was “the Rosa Parks of the industry”. He was one of the few African-American directors to have moved within the Hollywood studio system when, in 1970, Columbia gave him a three-picture contract. But Columbia balked at the incendiary plot of his next project, about a black hustler who kills white police officers and escapes scot-free, so Van Peebles borrowed $50,000 from the actor Bill Cosby, raised an additional $150,000, and launched an independent production as writer, director, producer, editor, composer and lead actor.Shot guerrilla-style over 19 days, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) was a huge commercial success and effectively launched the blaxploitation genre, which gave black actors an unprecedented array of leading roles. However, Van Peebles was ambivalent about the genre, as he believed it often sidelined the political motives of his own film. It was a retaliation against Hollywood’s default modes of black characterisation: silent subservience or the stately Sidney Poitier mould. The opening sequence lists the main stars as “the black community”. Continue reading...