Melvin Van Peebles, godfather of Black cinema, dies at 89

NEW YORK — Melvin Van Peebles, the groundbreaking filmmaker, playwright and musician whose work ushered in the “blaxploitation” wave of the 1970s, has died. He was 89.

In a statement, his family said Van Peebles, father of actor-director Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday at his home in Manhattan.

“Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?“Mario Van Peebles said in a statement. “We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”

Sometimes called the “godfather of modern Black cinema,” Van Peebles wrote numerous books and plays, and recorded several albums — playing multiple instruments and delivering rapstyle lyrics. He later became a successful options trader on the stock market.

But he was best known for “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song,” one of the most influential movies of its time. The low-budget, arthouse film, which he wrote, produced, directed, starred in and scored, was the frenzied, hyper-sexual and violent tale of a Black street hustler on the run from police after killing white officers who were beating a Black revolutionary.

With its hard-living, tough-talking depiction of life in the ghetto, underscored by a message of empowerment as told from a Black perspective, it set the tone for a genre that turned out dozens of films over the next few years and prompted a debate over whether Black people were being recognized or exploited.

“All the films about Black people up to now have been told through the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon majority in their rhythms and speech and pace,” Van Peebles told Newsweek in 1971, the year of the film’s release.

Made for around $500,000 (including $50,000 provided by Bill Cosby), it grossed $14 million at the box office despite an Xrating, limited distribution and mixed critical reviews.

Van Peebles, who complained fiercely to the Motion Picture Association over the X-rating, gave the film the tagline: “Rated X by an all-white jury.”

Van Peebles’ death came just days before the New York Film Festival is to celebrate him with a 50th anniversary of “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song.” Next week, the Criterion Collection is to release the box set “Melvin Van Peebles: Essential Films.”