The ‘godfather of modern Black cinema’, known for the film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song!, did it HIS WAY.
New York, NY (22 SEP 2021) Read the full article Melvin Van Peebles, groundbreaking playwright and director, dies aged 89
The worlds of cinema, theater, and civil rights are mourning the death and celebrating the life of Melvin Van Peebles, who died this week at the age of 89. Peebles paved the way for today’s forays into more diverse storytelling and casting decades before the mainstream commercial success of films like “Black Panther” and “Selma.”
Born Melvin Peebles in Chicago on 21 August 1932, he would later add “Van” to his name. He graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1953 and joined the air force, serving as a navigator for three years. After military service, he moved to Mexico and worked as a portrait painter, followed by a move to San Francisco, where he started writing short stories and making short films. Van Peebles soon went to Hollywood, but he was only offered a job as a studio elevator operator. Disappointed, he moved to Holland to take graduate courses in astronomy while also studying at the Dutch National Theatre.
Van Peebles soon moved to Paris, where he learned he could join the French directors’ guild if he adapted his own work written in French. He quickly taught himself the language and wrote several novels. One he made into a feature film. La Permission/The Story of the Three Day Pass, was the story of an affair between a black US soldier and a French woman. It won the critic’s choice award at the San Francisco film festival in 1967 and gained Van Peebles Hollywood’s attention.
“All the films about Black people up to now have been told through the eyes of the Anglo-Saxon majority-in their rhythms and speech and pace. In my film, the black audience finally gets a chance to see some of their own fantasies acted out…rising out of the mud and kicking ass. ”
director Melvin Van Peebles told Newsweek in 1971
(the year Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song! was released)
From a humble beginning of only two theaters and a torrent of negative reviews, Sweetback mushroomed to $10,000,000 at the box office, landing it on Daily Variety’s list of top grossing independent films. The film is widely credited with providing the inspiration for the so-called “Blaxploitation” film movement.
‘Beautiful exit’, Mario Van Peebles reflects on his iconic father’s legacy
💖💖💖 Please hold up the Van Peebles family in your prayers as they navigate this difficult period
New York City (25 SEP 2021) Read the full story ‘Beautiful exit’: Mario Van Peebles reflects on his iconic father’s film and civil rights legacy
Melvin’s family said in a statement that Van Peebles, father of the actor-director Mario Van Peebles, died Tuesday evening at his home in Manhattan.
“Dad knew that Black images matter. If a picture is worth a thousand words, what was a movie worth?” Mario Van Peebles said in a statement Wednesday. “We want to be the success we see, thus we need to see ourselves being free. True liberation did not mean imitating the colonizer’s mentality. It meant appreciating the power, beauty and interconnectivity of all people.”
“What Hollywood did – they suppressed the political message, added caricature – and Blaxploitation was born,” Van Peebles said in 2002. “The colored intelligentsia were not too happy about it.”
After his initial success, Van Peebles was bombarded with directing offers, but he chose to maintain his independence.
Rest in Power Mr. Melvin Van Peebles.
Sting & Stevie – Brand New Day | My Songs Tour | On Tour US & UK, October 2021 – October 2022
Black & White Cat … Black & White Cake
Thematic Art | Inter\Sections
Sting & Cheb Mami, Desert Rose 
Sting, Brand New Day Tour 
Sting & Stevie, Brand New Day 
black & white cat, black & white cake 
The Sentinel 
Guardian, Van Peebles, Ice T 
Paradise Lost, John Milton 
Time for a New Sky, Tyler Mitchell
Thematic Art Intersections
Film
The Sentinel (1977) genre: cult film, horror, thriller, supernatural; 🔥strange fire (problematic theology), witchcraft
Cristina Raines, John Carradine, Burgess Meredith, Ava Gardner, Chris Sarandon
Alison (Cristina Raines) relocates to an apartment in a brownstone building where the only other tenant is a withdrawn blind priest (John Carradine). After experiencing strange occurrences, Alison begins to realize why the holy man is present — the building has an evil presence that must be kept in check at all costs.
Guardian (2000), genre: action, horror, thriller, supernatural (theology & the Law)
Mario Van Peebles & Ice T
A terrifying supernatural power is unleashed during the gulf war & witnessed by Kross (Van Peebles). Twelve years later, Kross must race against time to stop the destruction, battle his own demons and come to grips with his destiny as he discovers that his reality has been mapped by a power much greater than himself.
Literature
Paradise Lost John Milton | Summary & Analysis
Paradise Lost is a famous epic poem from 1667 that deals with the expulsion of the first humans, Adam and Eve, from the Garden of Eden after they commit the sin of eating from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge. We encounter God, Archangel Michael, Adam and Eve, Sin, and Death and Satan/Lucifer as well. Paradise Lost is told by a third-person omniscient narrator, whom readers later learn is in fact the author, John Milton. Milton peppers his unrhymed, iambic pentameter with evocative symbolism, including the Scales of Justice, the Tree of Knowledge, and Adam’s Wreath for Eve.
Photography
‘Time for a New Sky‘ (2020), Tyler Mitchell
A representation of self-possession and Mitchell’s belief in radical optimism.
Tyler Mitchell’s Dreaming in Real Time is on at the Jack Shainman Gallery, 513 West 20th Street, New York, until 30 October. (All photographs: Tyler Mitchell/Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery, New York). In addition to Dreaming in Real Time, unseen works from Mitchell’s debut book I Can Make You Feel Good, can be viewed at the gallery’s 24th Street location until 30 October.
