Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song

A landmark in Black filmmaking in the U.S., this angry, extravagant, loud, belligerent movie reaches a high pitch early on and stays there. It's written, directed, photographed, scored by, and stars Melvin Van Peebles, who'd always wanted to be a filmmaker, went to France to do a conventional film (STORY OF A THREE DAY PASS), came back to try his hand in Hollywood (WATERMELON MAN), and finally wound up here, an independent in full control of his product.

The narrative is linear and relatively unimaginative. Sweetback (Van Peebles), who's working in a brothel when the film begins, is finally moved to action, stomps a couple of cops unconscious, then begins runnin...