Elvis Mitchell

Part icon, part iconoclast, Melvin Van Peebles is a filmmaker with a history that's as fascinating as any of his motion pictures. This award winning documentary (full of rare achival footage and unforgettable backstage stories from Spike Lee, Mario Van Peebles, Gil Scott-Heron and others) is a carefully-crafted tale of how a young black kid from Chicago ended up making one of the most controversial movies in American history, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, the film that sparked the Blaxploitation era in Hollywood. But the story hardly ends there. Director Joe Angio playfully traces Van Peebles' path from atom-bomb-ferrying Air Force pilot to French novelist to proto-rap singer to Wall Street options trader-- a remarkable journey that helps to explain where Sweet Sweetback actually got his song.

Part icon, part iconoclast, Melvin Van Peebles is a filmmaker with a history that's as fascinating as any of his motion pictures.

Part icon, part iconoclast, Melvin Van Peebles is a filmmaker with a history that's as fascinating as any of his motion pictures.