David Korb
WATCH OUT!
Sure, these lines are not an homage to brutality that the artist has invented, but a hymn from the mouth of reality.
- Anonymous
A tiger charges from his lair. At least that was the impression I had watching Richard Roundtree ascend from the subway in the opening sequence of Shaft! (1971). In this scene, director Gordon Parks seems to make the point that the black man is ascending from subservience into the light of day on his own terms. No longer limited by skin color to playing the buffoon or criminal, this new black man is unabashedly threatening, intelligent, brave, and virile! Yes, this cinematic statement of changing societal roles in America is made only in terms of the male — just refer to the title if you're unsure. In "Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song!" (1971) (SSBS), the black man doesn't spring into existence fully formed; instead, we see Sweetback early on, as a boy, under the control of mysterious women who feed him some kind of poisonous gruel. He makes his escape later in life, but winds up being the prey.
Meanwhile, John Shaft continues his commute to work, marching along in black leather jacket, ignoring cars, dodging grifters, and gathering information from his contacts on the street. All to the sound of Isaac Hayes singing the title tune (first academy award for a black composer), "They say that he's a bad mother… shut your mouth! …But I'm talkin' about Shaft!". Uh oh, his shoeshine man has some news: it seems a couple of gangsters are downtown looking for Shaft, and they're packing! As he leaves the shoeshine parlor, Shaft's police friend, Lieutenant Victor Androzzi (Charles Cioffi, Klute), asks him about rumors of gang activity on the street. But, Shaft doesn't have time to talk, blows him off, and walks away. "That boy's got a lot of mouth on him!" says Vic's sidekick. "Yeah, and that boy's man enough to back it up too." says Vic. In Sweetback's case, when the cops come to visit, it's always to arrest him.
Now, Shaft reaches his office, finds the two hoods that are looking for him, beats them up, and assists one out the window to his death. Downtown in Vic's office, the captain points to an assortment of weapons on the desk and asks Shaft, "Do all your friends walk around with weapons like that in their pockets?" Shaft replies, "That depends… my negro friends don't walk around with rabbit's feet no mo'". The strength of this film is that it breaks boundaries and throws stereotypes at the audience, but that's a weakness as well. As with Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" (1989), Parks uses this opportunity to educate and criticize the audience at the same time, by over-exposing racialist myths. This technique reaches its climax in an exchange of racial slurs between our black detective and an Italian gangster… Shaft - "Go ahead, [have an espresso] maybe they'll put some garlic in it, if you're nice." SSBS breaks boundaries too, but it lacks a coherent script in which messages can be inserted neatly; rather, it is an endless montage of brutality by whites against blacks and the message that subservience has to end. SSBS presented race war as the answer; whereas, Shaft had a moral compass that, although violent, was mainstream.
Shaft! had more violence - not to mention talk of violence and the threat of violence - than had ever been seen in a major studio film with a modern setting, apart from a few war movies, and the violence and threats of violence all took place within the ethos of racial politics and hatreds that were put right in viewers' faces. (Bruce Eder, http://www.allmovie.com)
There are some poignant message scenes in Shaft! such as when a Black militant poses as a waiter while scouting an enemy position. The militant is completely familiar with the proper form in serving drinks to a hotel guest (in this case a gangster he will later kill). Another is the use of fire-hoses in the assault on the bad guys. An homage of sorts to Sheriff Clark! Some of the movie boundaries crossed in Shaft include: having a black action hero; having a black kill someone and, behold, he does not go to the gallows or run to ground; and, Shaft takes a white chick home from the bar and she jumps in the shower with him! Although I believe much of this territory was broken cinematically in "100 Rifles" (1969), I think this was, as stated in the review, the first in a modern setting and was also a huge hit. It certainly crosses the boundaries politically speaking. SSBS has all the politics too, but where Shaft engages audience sympathy, SSBS just wears it out!
Things that detract from Shaft! include poor acting, writing, and production quality. Most of the performances are wooden (except for Cioffi). One of the early scenes shows all three: in developing Shaft's super tough attitude, the writers have a cop shout at Shaft, "Hey, where the hell do you think you're going?" (awkwardly). Response: "I'm going to get laid! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" Richard Roundtree had to force the laugh. The sound quality seems to vary quite a bit, as though the microphones were moving in and out of range. And, there are more than a few plot problems, such as Shaft finding the location of a secret black-panther meeting by asking a street junky, or having the out-of- town mobsters move a kidnap victim from one hotel to another. Well, at least she was comfortable!
SSBS, on the other hand, broke barriers artistically, as well as racially. It has a stream of consciousness quality that came right out of the free jazz movement. At times, the theme music played by Earth, Wind, & Fire heads off into free jazz tangents; you can also see free jazz influence in the film editing and the improvisational quality of impromptu performances given by community members. This film clearly had a strong influence on Sun Ra's "Space is the Place" (1974).
The opening scene of SSBS begins in silence as the camera pans on one woman's face, then to another. A sound rises: it’s the same one used as an effect in 1950's Hollywood science fiction movies to represent the sound of an alien spacecraft. It serves its purpose: to disturb and alienate. Then we see a starved boy, seated at a kitchen table, eating his gruel as fast as he can — the women look on with varied expressions (Felliniesque). The boy seems to have lesions on his scalp and that strange sound keeps rising! I can't escape the impression that what he is eating is unhealthy for him and that the women are to blame. Perhaps the director (Melvin van Peebles) has some resentment about the roles black women have played in the lives of men in black society. Or, maybe it's an innocent scene, the women having simply saved the boy from destitution. Whatever the case, these women are prostitutes and this young man is living in their whorehouse; where shortly he will be introduced (seduced) into the trade. After this short, childhood background portion ends, the rest of the movie is taken up with the adult Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), a taciturn sex worker, who is transformed from someone who just gets along in life to an outlaw running from The Man. The film presents white powerworking, in part, through the submission of a willing black populace.
The cops bug Beetle (Simon Chuckster), the sex-club owner, into providing a suspect for a murder investigation, and Sweetback gets the gig. Everyone is just playing along. It is what is expected of them. They just want to be left alone. Where's Shaft when you need him! Although Sweetback is a big dude, the cops have no fear; they even apologize for having to cuff him. On the way to the station, they take a call and arrest Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales) a young black activist. As the unit heads into an industrial area of the city, we see the neon sign "Jesus Saves". One of the cops says, "You've been stirrin' up the neighborhood kid…" and the other, "Nice night for a walk… he doesn't look so tough!" They get out and start beating Mu-Mu. The cops trust Sweetback to stand silently by and watch them do their work, but it's too much for Sweetback and he beats the cops senseless. Once the cops are out, Mu-Mu asks Sweetback, "Where are we going now?" Sweetback shoots back, "Where do you get this 'we' shit?"Sweetback is now on the run to the funky jazz riff that will play through most of the movie. Cops break down the doors at the brothel, but Sweetback went to the Beetle's house. Beetle tells Sweetback everything is cool, "I'm your man, I'm your main man!" Just leave out the back door! Sweetback is soon taken into custody, and the commissioner orders a beating. Fortunately, a friendly neighborhood mob saves him by firebombing the cop car. Shaft! was about putting blacks into traditionally white roles (with a twist of politics), but SSBS was about turning the tables and a community fighting back. Sweetback runs to an incarcerated friend's girlfriend for help, but "first things first!" she says as she begins to unzip him. Well, there is one strong parallel with Shaft, and that is that both protagonists are sex machines. In Sweetback it's literally his trade. In Shaft's case, it's in the lyrics to his own song. For, SSBS it probably includes some political connotations about the black male sexual mystique; I'm not sure what van Peebles might have been driving at (other than obvious targets).SSBS is one surrealistic scene after another as Sweetback seeks help from the community, gets into rumbles, and screws women. He even has a run-in with a rather large white woman biker. Forced into a duel by the white biker gang, he is given a choice of weapons: "Wrestling? Knives?" "Fucking!", declares Sweetback. So, this is apparently the first black on white sex scene; especially as most of the sex in this movie seems to be real. Ah, but who really cares anyway? I suppose it was provocative at the time.
Interspersed in the soundtrack at one point: from a gospel choir singing "This little light of mine!" to a crowd of voices that shout, "Come on Sweetback! Come on motherfucker!" He runs across the desert, drinks from puddles, eats a lizard. He kills pursuing bloodhounds. In the end, he eludes the cops and as he heads toward the border, a banner fills the screen: " WATCH OUT! A baad asssss nigger is coming back to collect some dues." Sweetback has transcended the role of the submissive. He now represents what used to be the southern white fear of a slave uprising.
WATCH OUT!