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When I first heard that Mario Van Peebles was making a movie entitled How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass, well I thought the movie would be a joke, intentionally or not. But the word at the Toronto Film Festival, where it premiered, was surprisingly good, so I decided to take a chance. Now that the title has been shortened (though not bowdlerized) to the simple Badasssss! and released in Chicago, I'm happy to report it's not only not a joke, it's a film well worth your time.

The movie is a re-enactment of the making of Melvin Van Peebles's groundbreaking Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. In the new movie, Mario plays his father Melvin with all the charisma he can muster. Sweet Sweetback was made in 1971, after Melvin had scored a hit with Watermelon Man. Melvin's agent, played in Badasssss! by the always welcome Saul Rubinek, encouraged him to make another low-brow picture that would appeal to white folk, to be "their first niggerologist," as Mario puts it in Badasssss! But Melvin wanted to take his new-found power and make an entirely different kind of movie, one that would speak to black people and not demean them, one that would speak to a society caught up in the Vietnam War and the beginnings of the Sexual Revolution.

The early part of Badasssss! tells this part of the story, as Melvin struggles to find a story worth telling. "I'd make a film about a real brother" and that "starred the community, all the faces Norman Rockwell never painted." But that's easier said than done. An early montage sequence nicely sets out the difficulties of the creative process as well as the trouble of raising money. But that's nothing compared to the difficulties when filming actually begins.

Unable to find someone with the right qualities, Melvin decides to cast himself in the lead role. Finding the other actors takes him to places casting agents never visit. To use an integrated crew--one of his primary motivations--he has to side-step the unions, and the only way he can do that is to make it appear that he's making a porno film. But to do that, he has to trick women that he knows into posing nude.

The movie Badasssss! may be a homage to Melvin Van Peebles and his pioneering spirit, but it's not a whitewash. Mario is clear about how his father manipulated everyone around him, including himself. Sweet Sweetback was infamous for a scene in which Melvin cast his own son as a young boy losing his virginity, and Badasssss! addresses that issue in ways that highlight the complicated nature of the father-son relationship.

It's also clear that Melvin sometimes didn't have a clue of what he was making. In one hilarious scene in Badasssss!, he sets a live fire, so that he can film the arriving fire trucks without having to pay for them. In another compelling scene, Melvin's crew is arrested with the equipment, but he's afraid of getting involved. He claims that his volatile presence will only make things worse, but that has a self-serving ring to it.

But in other cases, Melvin stands out as a visionary. He hired Earth, Wind & Fire to compose the soundtrack well before they became famous. His emphasis on telling a story that would resonate with a previously ignored audience set the stage for the Blaxploitation movement of the later '70s and the current emphasis today, in which almost every other weekend features a movie tailored to a black audience. Most importantly, though, he understood that to confront the system, you often have to work outside the system. In that sense, Melvin Van Peebles embodied real independent cinema, not the half-baked, stepping-stone-to-glory filmmaking that passes itself off as independent today.

This is where Badasssss! really shines. Mario Van Peebles captures the excitement of doing something new, something genuinely creative. Few critics today consider Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song anything more than a cultural footnote (and I'll admit the movie is a mess), but Mario reminds us that the movie was more important for how it was made, what it stood for, and how it inspired its audience.

Furthermore, Mario's movie has the same bravado and appeal that his father's movie did. The funk score is invigorating, Mario's charisma is captivating, and Robert Primes's over-saturated cinematography is gorgeous to behold. Badasssss! is funny, sexy, and dramatic. It tells its story with verve and pace, making you wish that you, too, could've been part of Melvin's crew. And most importantly, Badasssss! reminds us of the social context of filmmaking--that it doesn't just have to be mindless entertainment but that it can change how people think and how they act.

J. Robert Parks  6/7/2004