Classified X Reviews

Hosted by maverick filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, CLASSIFIED X is an analytical history of the representation of blacks in American motion pictures. Part lecture, part self-tribute, this French-financed documentary is rambling but informative, and, thanks to Van Peebles, never less than entertaining. While Van Peebles's 1971 film SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAAD ASSSS SONG was a breakthrough in American cinema in its portrayal of African-Americans, its creator rejects the notion that "it didn't owe anything to the past." He explains that the film was a reaction to the fallacious, demeaning depiction of blacks that had marked American cinema up through that time. Racist images have appeared in American films since their inception. For the first half-century of American filmmaking, blacks were presented as grotesque stereotypes, sometimes by white actors in black face. Such post-War movies as PINKY (1949) and INTRUDER IN THE DUST (1949) addressed bigotry in America, but even in these films, blacks were secondary, with white characters representing the forces of tolerance. A respite for black moviegoers was provided by a parallel film industry that produced movies featuring all-black casts, for exhibition in segregated theaters. These films were popular with black audiences but also reflected the racism of the broader culture in that, within them, light skin tone connoted superiority. As a concession to the civil rights movement, Hollywood produced such works as GUESS WHO'S COMING TO DINNER (1967). By the late 1960s, Hollywood studios finally began to hire black filmmakers, including Van Peebles, Ossie Davis, and Gordon Parks, but gave them poor scripts and low budgets. Tired of token support, Van Peebles decided "to kick Hollywood's ass" and made SWEETBACK. Dismissed by the mainstream media and slapped with an X rating, SWEETBACK was nonetheless a huge hit with black audiences, and Hollywood parlayed its success into the blaxploitation cycle. Although the 1990s witnessed the rise of a few black filmmakers, many others have trouble with the distribution and exhibition of their work. So, Van Peebles concludes, segregation may have been outlawed in 1954, "but filmwise, we're still waiting." CLASSIFIED X is as much a performance piece as it is a history. Throughout the film, Van Peebles, decked out in shabby street clothes, stands in front of cheesy rear-projected images of grimy New York waterfront scenery as he delivers a jaundiced chronicle of the debasement of African-Americans through cinema. Van Peebles's wry depiction of himself--as a down-and-out but scrappy outsider--coupled with his defiant, sarcastic delivery (of commentary he scripted) makes CLASSIFIED X enjoyable in spite of its grim subject matter, and satisfying in spite of its shortcomings. As a history, CLASSIFIED X is rather sloppy and incomplete. Clips used to illustrate Van Peebles's commentary are rarely identified by title, and the groupings of them are chronologically inaccurate. Segments from BLACK LIKE ME (1964), for example, are included in the sequence addressing social problem movies of the immediate post-War period. The film also mentions but shortchanges both Ossie Davis and Gordon Parks, citing none of Davis's works by title and referring to Parks's SHAFT (1971) solely as an example of how mainstream studios exploited SWEETBACK's appeal to black audiences. Yet CLASSIFIED X does offer ample and potent filmic evidence to support its contention, demonstrating how blacks have been, and continue to be, horrendously under and misrepresented in American cinema. Van Peebles's first-person take on the matter--his comments on how his lifelong love of movies conflicted with his feelings of shame and anger as a black viewer--give the piece the immediacy of personal experience. CLASSIFIED X may not be great scholarship, but it still provides a worthwhile and insightful lesson. (Profanity.)