Session Transcript:
Melvin Van Peebles
Red Bull Music Academy, Barcelona 2008

The video stream for this lecture can be watched here.

Melvin Van Peebles is such an extraordinary pioneer it’s a wonder there aren’t statues in his honour. He is the man-who-can in so many fields: the first black director of the modern age, the first man to really just talk over music (and pioneering rap along the way), even the first black trader on Wall Street. He tells us all about his incredible life in film and music, from sleeping on park benches to throwing people down elevators to blowing up police cars and threatening Hells Angels. But really, all he wants to do is tell stories. Here’s his. Check out a real MVP.

RBMA: »People like Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe would be jealous, because we have a true 20th and 21st century renaissance man sitting here; someone who, according to his son, didn’t just open the doors, he blew them off the hinges. Please welcome Mr Melvin Van Peebles.«

(applause)

Melvin Van Peebles: »Thank you. You know what’s very funny, I don’t usually get an opportunity to speak. I have Alzheimer’s – you know what that is? When you get old, you can’t remember shit. That’s me. So I never bother preparing a speech because it’s very difficult to know the questions people will have. But I do know the answers to the questions if they concern me. The way I normally do it, is you ask me anything you want to know. I was born in Chicago many years ago, I’ve been around the world, I’ve flown jet bombers, I’ve been a crime reporter in Paris. Mario, for example, was born in Mexico when I lived there. That’s pretty much it, except I had a very bad temper and decided I wasn’t going to take any shit. From that, I didn’t know a musical revolution was in the future, but it seems some of the things I did helped along that revolution. For me to be here and see the things last night, and the other things you people are doing, wow, it’s a fucking dream come true. This is what I imagined, and I’m very appreciative for the Red Bull Festival asking me and Eothen for putting me in contact. So if you have any questions, just ask me, I don’t mind.«

RBMA: »I’m sure we’ll take you up on that. You were talking about these revolutions, and yesterday Raul told us how the more advanced things over here happened with the more bored, rich kids. Going back to the way most of us were getting in touch with your work, it was probably through the films of your son and his comrades and realising they were quoting films that were made before we were even born. Then you realise, fuck it, you don’t need to go to the best film schools in Hollywood or know all the best producers. There were guys there back in the early ‘70s who just did what they did because they felt like it. And if it took the money from the Actors Guild, hell we’re just going to do it, as long as we can do it ourselves. And in a way, I guess, that was inspiration for the hip hop generation - to do things with just whatever you have.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »The actual trajectory of the music came out of what I did in the following manner. I’ll tell you my life story in five minutes. I was born in Chicago, a child prodigy, and I finished college when I was 20-years-old. But to finish college, because my parents were poor, I took a course. I didn’t know what it was, but it meant I was an officer in the Air Force, so when I was 20 I was flying jets. I did that for a number of years, then I lived in Mexico where Mario was born. Then I lived in San Francisco and fell in love – well, I’d always been in love - with cinema. I wrote a book and someone got on my cable car - he was a grip man, you know who used to pull the cable cars, a big metal piece and so forth. And the guy said: “You know your book is just like a movie.” So I said: “Shit, I’ll go into the movies.” But there’s one little thing: I didn’t have any music. I couldn’t afford anyone, so I numbered all the keys on the piano because I couldn’t read or write music, so I wrote the numbers, then I played the music. In those days, Hollywood wouldn’t take a black person to work, so I was discouraged and went to Holland, where I was getting a PhD – I’m an astronomer and mathematician also – and while I was there the French Cinematheque saw my work and said I was a genius. Finally somebody who understands me (laughter)! So I went to Paris and made my first feature there after being, what we call a clochard, and little by little I learnt to speak French. Then I wrote the score and then I made another movie later called Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and that began taking off. At that time, what we call the black revolution was going on in America, but the music was not revolutionary. It was still blues or just straight jazz, none of it talked about what was really going on. Since I couldn’t sing I just talked about what was going on myself and this became hip hop and rap and that’s the story.«

RBMA: »So out of the maybe 25 professions you mastered – and I’m just guessing here, I may have missed some - the common thread is storytelling, narratives. Were you a good storyteller at school?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Well, I was always full of shit if that’s what you mean (laughter). We call that storytelling elsewhere. I’m very political and you have to keep your audience interested to tell the story and when I won the festival in San Francisco with my first French feature, I had no money and went back to New York, where I was living on a park bench. The first night, I heard this noise and it was people singing up to their women in the Women’s House Of Detention. Now, if I say something you don’t understand, don’t nod your head, just ask me. He’ll translate it or I’ll explain it. It’s quite interesting what I have to say, but it’s sometimes intricate. So if you don’t understand me, please stop me and I’ll make it clear. Anyway, this was after I had success with my first feature film, I had no money but I heard people yelling. At this women’s prison, people couldn’t yell out, but their loved ones could yell up. I thought, ‘Wow, this would make a great song.’ So I composed this song: “Hey, fourth floor, sugar, that your light? Make some kind of sign so I know it’s you.” So the women would blink some kind of light so their people would know it was them. The people would open their hearts up to their loved ones. It was wonderful, it was poignant, but no one was capturing this. So I started capturing these sort of stories and put them into an album and that was the beginning of the lyrics to music saying something once more. Vocals in the early ‘60s were simply accompaniments to music, sort of “Hey baby, bap-do-daa”, but they never said anything. I wanted to tell a story, so I brought the orchestrations down, that way I could tell a story. Another time I was sitting in a little restaurant and someone went along, and everyone said: “Hey, look at that”. But I turned around too late, she’d gone. But that gave me an idea for a story which we call Catch That On The Corner, the story of a blind guy who fell in love and he’s asking his buddy to describe the girl he’s in love with. Turns out his girl isn’t a girl at all, but his buddy doesn’t know how to tell him that. “Hey baby, what’s that on the corner?” He’s talking to his buddy. Somehow, A&M Records took my music and the Last Poets started doing it, Gil Scott-Heron started telling stories again, not just “I’ll meet you at the bar in five minutes,” but stories. I wanted to do political work, that’s how the music got politicised, then that evolved into rap and LL Cool J and Last Poets, that’s how it all happened.«

RBMA: »There’s an account of your time in France; that even after you’d just moved there, you’d be telling stories about the 14th Arrondissement to people who’d lived there all their lives. To tell a story you need first to learn what’s going on.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »There’s a whole French tradition, chanson realiste, realistic songs. There’s a very famous guy called Aristide Bruant, who wrote (sings in French). It’s about a hooker at the Bastille. There are all these stories and I’m sure I was very strongly influenced by all this. Early on in American music, especially black music, you’d hear these songs, but then it got washed out. For instance, (sings) “Good night Irene, I’ll get you in my dreams.” When the song was taken for what they call public consumption, meaning the majority white consumption, it was changed from “I’ll get you in my dreams”, which of course means something sexual, to “I’ll see you in my dreams”. Who gives a shit who you see in your dreams? But these little changes affect the political and real meaning. So that’s what I did. Can you imagine when the major part of the political riots began to happen, we still didn’t have music talking about the problems in America. But now, once I made money, that gave the possibility, of us beginning to have rap and a whole load of other things. Hold on, maybe I’ve got something (rummages in bag). You can go ahead and talk while I look.«

RBMA: »There are some pictures of you as a little boy on the South side and it might be worth talking about the South side of Chicago, because there are a few characters who hail from there. When I picture all the characters, I picture a cross between Steve Urkel and Kanye West.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »No, not at all, the South side was like the wild Whear est. Just looking out the window I’d see nine people killed, but you didn’t think about it. There’s a difference living a life that these people lived. Take Kanye West and these people, their bling is aware that the world is watching them. There’s a difference when you’re just doing things. There’s a song called I Hear You Knocking But You Can’t Come In. (sings) So what’s the song really saying? When the blacks left the South and came North, often the men couldn’t find work and the woman would become a prostitute. She’s letting the man know she’s got a customer and he can’t come in. It makes a difference when you know things like that. Now it’s chic to be that, there wasn’t nothing chic about it then, you get your brains blown out. Quite different. Hold on, let me see if I can find this shit.«

RBMA: »It’s good that the Alzheimer’s doesn’t effect the cursing. That must be comforting.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I want to put on probably one of my favourite songs. Doesn’t this thing work?«

RBMA: »I hope so.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »OK, we’re in business then. Do I need this fucking thing (puts down microphone)?«

RBMA: »We need it for recording purposes. Can you please?«

(picks microphone up)

Melvin Van Peebles: »Let’s talk about storytelling: I’m in a hotel in New York and there was a young lady with me. Can everybody hear me? She reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Finally I did. There used to be a cartoon character called Tweety Bird. After we’d made love, she jumped up and started dancing, and I thought, ‘Oh shit, she looks like Tweety Bird’. Tweety Bird was quite a pretty bird by the way (laughter), but this evolved into a story and I’ll tell you the story then play this. A guy is in jail and he’s going to be executed and he’s explaining why he’s in jail just before they come to execute him. OK, play it. The first one.«

(music: Melvin Van Peebles – Lily Done The Zapoughi / repeats the lyrics / gets up and dances / applause)

»But you see, my public understood what this meant, that the guy is going to the electric chair. This became a very famous underground hit. I would like to play just one more piece of another song. Number six. I was talking to you earlier about Tenth And Greenwich. These songs had been put in this form because people didn’t know what a picaresque colourful life they were living, they allowed people to start living this life.«

(music: Melvin Van Peebles – Tenth And Greenwich (Women’s House Of Detention))

»What I tried to do, and what’s now happening, the events of everyday life of us in the ghetto... we had the everyday events of life in the cotton field and whatever. It’s been taken on and the guys have done beautiful work with the rapping and other parts of the music. I’d be remiss if I didn’t play one more song, here’s a piece of another thing. This is the end of this whole series of music I did on A&M Records. This is called Put A Curse On You. Nothing had been done like that, now it’s ubiquitous, albeit in a much smoother form. Sat the end of the show, everything is a finale and it’s all closed down, it suddenly stops, because it ends on a note of ‘this is how life is’. But that’s not my personality, I’m sort of a fighter. An old bag lady come forward out of the audience and begins to tell her story, putting everything into a completely different perspective.«

RBMA: »Can you explain what a bag lady is?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »A bag lady is a clochard, a tramp. She’s been wondering around and probably everyone thinks she’s insane. But that’s not all of it, she understands and she sums up the author’s point of view about racism at the time.«

(music: Melvin Van Peebles – Put A Curse On You )

RBMA: »Just to get the content right for people who didn’t get it at first, this is the end of a Broadway show, one of the world’s most famous theatre streets. At the end of a play talking about things that are not exactly classic Broadway material, that’s about as intense as audience interaction can go, unless you’re Bertolt Brecht or someone.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »What happened, it changed everything. Not only was it about something, it made money. At that juncture, the doors that were closed to Kane, LL Cool J and everyone, opened because the American dollar says if you can make money, then you can say whatever you want to say.«

RBMA: »There’s a quote of yours saying that whatever you do, whatever cause you’re fighting, it’s important that the big boys win if you win. Can you elaborate on that?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »The trick is, you figure out a way to do something you want to do, but if it can make money, they will carry the message. The people were so hungry to hear themselves, to see their thoughts, ones that sometimes they didn’t even know they were carrying, when I projected that, they bought it.«

RBMA: »There’s something pretty intricate about what you just said, which is essential for anyone who ever tried to convey a message in any form of storytelling. You sit there with a blank piece of paper thinking you have nothing to say, but I can talk about everyday things because that’s my everyday life. You’ve overcome that very notion, at least two or three times.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »What you do is say, ‘How can I put it in a form that will get to, maybe not every audience, but your audience?’ Now we talk about blaxploitation, all of that came from one of my films, Sweetback. Now I have to go to the Museum Of Modern Art in New York, they’re giving me a huge restoration of my film, which is a huge honour. But when that film came out, only two theatres in the entire United States would show it; not two cities, two theatres. But I knew my audience and that was so successful, so then, of course, everyone else took the film. Then you had Shaft, etc., etc. My work is a little ferocious, so they made theirs a little more acceptable to the mainstream, and the music a little more acceptable to the mainstream. I don’t know if everybody is aware of the music of Sweetback.«

RBMA: »Before we go into the music of Sweetback, I guess we could talk for days about the signifying moments of that film, but for America it was the biggest crossover movie of 1972, which obviously gives you a lot of relevance in the American mainstream anyway. But you achieved it with pretty radical statements in visual and musical form. I guess the average Oklahoma audience would be disturbed just by the opening credits.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »It’s quite complicated, it’s common sense, but still complicated. No, I take that back, it’s only complicated if you’re a racist. The American cities had a large African-American population and the movies were closing because they had nothing relevant they wanted to see. I simply wrote a relevant movie. I probably made $8m before any white people had even fucking seen it. But then it couldn’t be ignored. The music, Quincy Jones says to leave a little room for luck, for god, or whatever. When I’d written and shot the movie, I hadn’t done the music yet. I was looking around for a group, because I didn’t have time to teach people how to play as a group. So I needed people who already played together. My secretary was sleeping with this one guy and they were all sleeping in this room in Hollywood, 12 of them. And she said: “You must go see these guys.” So I went to see them and it was Earth, Wind & Fire. So they’d never done an album before. I wrote the music, and since I can’t read or write music, I hummed it to them, taught them my musical method. They played it the way I asked them to and it became a huge hit. I’m going to play a little bit of Sweetback’s Theme. Before this, music, even in Hollywood, was not used as selling tool. Even with a musical, they’d bring it out as a movie, then maybe bring out the album. Since I had no money, I had this idea b´’Boiinnnng, oh shit!’ It would cost you a lot of money for a 15-second commercial, but a song would run for three minutes. So I wrote the song and gave it the same title as the film so every time they played my song, they were plugging the movie. Durr! So then, I was a little bit known by this time, all the hip DJs, black and white, were playing my music. It was being plugged all over. Then, because of the revolutionary aspect of the film, the Black Panthers made it required viewing for their members, they were required to go and see it. That changed everything. Then films started putting music before the movie sometimes. The next one they tried that with was Shaft, and Shaft became a huge hit, music and film. So ever since then, every piece-of-shit film has got a soundtrack.«

RBMA: »Do you think anyone in the Panthers at that time would’ve imagined the labyrinthine impact of it? You doing this movie, Panthers being inspired by it, this inspiring the generation of Public Enemy and Spike Lee, which in turn inspires people all over the world, which then feeds back into this system. So it all came from this one decision of yours to say: “Hey boys, go and see this film.”«

Melvin Van Peebles: »The real answer is, fuck yes! Often when I get into fights, someone would say to me: “Melvin, how did you know you could beat that guy?” I didn’t know I could beat him, I just knew I wasn’t going to take it. You know when you go hitchhiking, if you stand there long enough you know someone should pick you up. You shouldn’t intimidate yourself with that question. “Oh, I’m not a success yet!” It’s not how many times you get knocked down that counts, it’s how many times you get up. I hoped these things would come to pass, I didn’t know how they would come to pass. But you’ve got to be in it to win it. The first thing you learn as a hunter is you never back a dangerous animal into a hole because he’s got nothing to lose. I had nothing to lose: after that, you’re a rich man.«

RBMA: »When you say your politics are to win, who do you win against?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Whoever’s fucking with me.«

RBMA: »That’s pretty straightforward.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »It’s not complicated (laughs). I was on a bandstand once with Patti Labelle and someone in the audience was giving me a hard time. So I jumped off the stage. They assume because you are who you are, they can say things they wouldn’t say in a bar or wherever and you’ve got to take it. No, no. First rule is: don’t write a cheque with your mouth that your ass can’t cash. I had nothing to lose, nothing to lose.«

RBMA: »We understand you take that approach literally everywhere. On a personal note, when I dropped out of college, it was because I was so fed up with a course of African-American movies. I was so fed up that they would talk and talk for hours without ever mentioning the role of things like friendship and brotherhood. Somehow I think these things have a role in there. And this lady looked at me straight and said: “Well, how about the portrayal of the welfare queen?” I walked out because I figured this course wasn’t for me, but I understand you had similar discussions and took things a little bit further.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »There were so many of them; give me a hint which one you’re talking about. I’m always in trouble (laughs).«

RBMA: »You were in a very highbrow discussion and you were disagreeing with something someone said. I think you took it back…«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I threw them down the elevator, yes. The movie Sweetback, this guy owed me money because independent distributors would pay you if they wanted to. If you’re ever in New York walking down 57th Street, if you could flash back, you would see a guy dangling out the window. But he paid me, if not I would’ve dropped him (laughs).«

RBMA: »And I guess in similar incidents, professors in highbrow universities aren’t safe either.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I won’t take it. As I said, I was in the military, and there’s nothing worse if your plane’s on fire than thinking afterwards, ‘I should’ve done this, or that’. Go ahead and do it, if not you’ll get an ulcer.«

RBMA: »And being in the military you’ll also learn there are ups and downs.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I don’t really have many ups and downs. Once you decide that it’s all part of the trip, you don’t mind. It’s just, OK. With that philosophy you get laid a lot too. “What if she says no?” Durr! Ask! You’ll be surprised guys, there are a lot of nice ladies out there.«

RBMA: »I guess that’s what they call the art of the possible.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »It’s just being nice and kind and gentle. Or pretend to (laughs).«

RBMA: »And if something doesn’t work out, just throw them down the elevator.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Exactly! Not very complicated (applause).«

RBMA: »Speaking of politics and winning, this summer and the last 12 months have been busy with a really interesting process in America. Do you think Obama has any chance of winning this?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I never discuss politics, I do politics.«

RBMA: »What’s the difference?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Well, once somebody says “blah-blah-blah”, then someone else says, “don’t do that motherfucker”. I may help these people immensely or not immensely, but it would be foolish for someone of my renegade status to say one thing or another that could get used against that person.«

RBMA: »You mean like the Ludacris incident?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Like any incident, I never say anything about anything. The only thing that catches a fish is a mouth. If he keeps his fucking mouth shut he doesn’t get caught.«

RBMA: »There’s another one for my calendar. Speaking of catchphrases, at the end of Sweetback there’s a quote from the Bible. This comes from the same man who says he wants to take movies, and especially that demographic, away from the lynch mob and the Bible and the hymn. And yet you say: “Feet don’t fail me now.”«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Yes, that’s not the Bible.«

RBMA: »That’s from the Bible.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »But it’s also from this (sings). We can put that one. What I did with the religious song, because many of those beliefs were holding the people in bondage, so I took the subtlety of those things and turn it on its head. I’m not very big, so I use judo; you take the strength of the opponent and turn it on him. If you flip it… hold on one second, let me look at that (picks up CD). Put on number three.«

(music: Melvin Van Peebles – Come On Feet Do Your Thing )

»What I did was take – one of the reasons the Black Panthers liked this so much – I took all of the major cultural fears of black people and debunked them, tore them down. That’s why he’s being chased by dogs at the end and kills them. That’s why I took this belief in god and ‘the Lord will help’, etc., etc. – that’s why he says, “Help me get away” – I took those requirements and stood them on their head. It was what it seemed to be at the moment, then you take it and say: “There is a way out of this.”«

RBMA: »Modest as he is, he’s also been the first black trader. I find it interesting, because when you look at the documents and so on, if you were at university you’d probably be called the first African-American trader. Which one would you prefer?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I don’t give a shit (laughs).«

RBMA: »Nevertheless, this was another first; you had a lot throughout your career, but I guess the Wall Street thing, especially given the events of the last 10 days, is a special one.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Hmm. What happened is I lost a bet, and that was what we call the vigorous, the cost of the bet. I was sitting with some very, very rich friends and the guy was talking and I could do the numbers in my head. He said: “You can do that?” And he got the calculator out and realised I was right. And one of the guys sitting with us, who was particularly Machiavellian, a big marker on Wall Street and a troublemaker, too, and being so big, he got me a job trading on Wall Street.«

RBMA: »How did you find it?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »It was quite interesting. As an artist, you write something and you’re never sure you’ve made it, but on Wall Street, if you’ve made a bad trade, by the evening, you know? I could trade zillions of dollars all day, but I never made a mistake. No, that’s not true. I made mistakes. Many of the people working Wall Street were minorities, but they never got to the position I was in. So if I made a mistake they would ignore me, because they knew I was making a mistake. So they protected me, so therefore I ended up never making a mistake.«

RBMA: »Part of the American dream is getting all those riches, so I guess up until 10 days ago, that’s where they were. So how did you resist the temptation of staying there?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I got laid anyway, I got girls, what the fuck do I need Wall Street for?«

RBMA: »I guess a couple of the characters over there would like to consider themselves artists also.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I don’t consider myself an artist, I’m just a loudmouth who’s ready to back it up (laughs).«

RBMA: »Which got you pretty far in the end.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »If tomorrow I discovered ethanol, or being a planter in such and such, would help the minorities, then I would do that. I don’t give a shit.«

RBMA: »When you were on the floor in Wall Street, you were in Manhattan. Thinking back to the days when the Panthers were looking out for you, did you think any revolution would be possible in America and could it happen without being an economic revolution?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Let’s be very, very clear about revolution. Do you mean racial revolution or the whole structural revolution?«

RBMA: »That was actually part of the question, hidden away there.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Well, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.«

RBMA: »Well, when you were talking about revolution earlier, to which degree did you want to change things? What did you want as your end result?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »(laughs) You notice he slid around the question there. What I meant was a little like christmas – peace and goodwill to all mankind ‘na-na-na-na’. Well, you’ve got to do that step by step. One of the major steps that still has to happen is for us to get our shit together, not just in America or Barcelona. Maybe it’s being an astronomer and looking out there. We’re fairly fortunate as a race - and by race I mean homo sapiens, the human race - maybe we can get our shit together. But it’s step by step, fire by fire. This was a fire that I had, particularly acute sensibilities that I could affect. One victory at a time, and part of that victory was: you guys must realise that doing music is part of making that change. People from all over the world are sitting down and making that unity. Once it was sitting down, and there might only have been four people to that tribe. Then people started moving all over the world and that made it easy for the greedy to set one group against the other. Through music and other things it’s coming together. In a very large and philosophical way, I would like peace on earth – (sings) hark the herald angels sing – but in the meantime you might have to kick a motherfucker’s ass.«

RBMA: »What part of that ass-kicking is just for entertainment?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »I met her last night (laughs).«

RBMA: »Let’s not get into specifics, but speaking of kicking ass, after Three Day Pass people accused you - especially with scenes of Sweetback in the back of your mind - of being melancholic and soft and lacking the violence.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »You’ve got to realise Christ was nothing but a carpenter in his home town. That’s a very interesting questions and I want to repeat it. My first movie was French. I wanted to make it because I discovered a way of twisting the bureaucracy and getting a director’s card. So I made a film that was very, very kind to the French. That allowed me to break Hollywood, which I did. Sometimes you have to turn left to do right. It’s a sweet film, so everyone assumes I make sweet films. OK, you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to get where you’ve gotta go.«

RBMA: »When you do something, no matter whether it’s a song or a text in a book or a movie script and there’s a depiction of violence, do you consider whether it’s necessary to get the point across or do you just indulge yourself because you like to do that?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »The truth is I assume I walk in water and I do what the fuck I like. I make movies like I cook, I put in what I like in case nobody else wants to eat it and I have to eat it for the rest of the week. I write a play or something and I assume people are going to like it, but they don’t, I do. I can sit there and watch Sweetback or Don’t Come Cheap and have a good old time. The worst thing you can do is to do something for others and they don’t like it anyway, then you’re fucked (laughter).«

RBMA: »We had someone here earlier who talked about destroying the Lego city after they built it. All political things aside, blowing up a police car and making it burn is great fun, isn’t it?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »That was quite difficult, it was a good sequence. You don’t get to do these things the way I did them that’s any fun. There’s a sequence in Sweetback where they blow up a police car. That’s a lot of money and you’ve got to have permits. I had an idea. I went on Friday to the place that allows you to have explosions. I put it on Friday, they give me the papers. I blow it up on Saturday. The police come, I’ve got my papers because nobody put the rest of the papers in until Monday. I counted on them being lazy. But the rest of the movie was no fun. My guys and I had real guns, because the film industry claimed they were going to shut me down. So the sequence with the Hells Angels guy, after they worked a few hours they said they wanted to go. This guy pulled out his knife and started cleaning his hands. My guys went (makes sound of rifle cocking). My guys had guns. They stayed. Fun? That wasn’t fucking fun, that was just getting the job done. It’s fun when people are applauding.«

RBMA: »I guess the fun is in the actual creation of it, but you must be hitting some walls when you go from sitting at the typewriter writing the script to having to deal with this army of people. I guess it’s a similar thing on a smaller scale if you’re in a band.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »It’s the same with my typewriter – everybody knows me. Nobody fucks with me. Do it or your ass is mine. My group moves; they don’t move, they ain’t there, or they’re there with bandages on. Period. I’m not the Salvation Army.«

RBMA: »Christmas carols saved for later.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »There you go. But you do that so hopefully other people don’t have to do it under the same circumstances. The questions you’re asking me are war questions. We’ve had a truce because of the war. I had to beat up people, OK, but only to make it possible for others not to have to. But don’t turn it around and make it like, “How could you do that?” There’s nothing major or good or anything else about it, it’s just getting the job done.«

RBMA: »I guess you need to clarify: what do you mean by war questions.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »When I was making Sweetback, the Teamsters, the labour unions, wouldn’t do it when they saw I was doing it. If you made a movie in Hollywood at that time and they saw the film, the laboratories would scratch your film, the people in the labs, union people, would scratch your film so it was unusable. So I had to cover all that. Now, you’d say: “Melvin don’t like that,” and they know what that means.«

RBMA: »Speaking of Hollywood, in another movie you pulled a reverse Al Jolson and...«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Which movie?«

RBMA: »The one with the face cover.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Oh, Watermelon Man.«

RBMA: »It’s probably better if you tell it. Also, if you could explain the movie jazz singer, the Al Jolson one.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Actually, in this movie - I don’t know what it’s called here, but it was called Watermelon Man in the States - this white guy turns black. He has to live with this sudden blackness and how it affects his life. I didn't write this script, it was written by someone else. It was a studio movie. After Hollywood had let two black directors in – Gordon Parks and Ossie Davis – they were still chasing me because of the success of my first French movie. I said, OK. But it should be explained, both of the other movies they allowed black people to shoot after I broke Hollywood, they didn’t allow them to shoot in Hollywood, they had to shoot on location. That was the major prize – to shoot in Hollywood. I held out, I said: “OK, I’ll shoot the movie if you let me shoot in Hollywood.” So they let me shoot there and they gave me this script. It was nice, but it ended with this guy waking up and he’s white again, and I didn’t want him to, I wanted him to stay black. They wanted him white. I wanted him to stay black. We came to a compromise: we’d shoot it both ways and make a decision later on. So that’s what we did, except I didn’t shoot it their way, I just shot it my way. I was busy with that battle, which was fine with me. I put in the political things I wanted said, and I didn’t shoot it the other way, so they had to do it my way. Treacherous piece-of-shit thing to do to the studio, but what else is new?«

RBMA: »Tears? Did you hear about the movie Tropic Thunder?«

Melvin Van Peebles: »No.«

RBMA: »OK, next one, save that for later. Do you know James Logan in L.A.? He does a lot of leather coats, what he calls the hero coats, long black leather coats.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »What is he, an actor?«

RBMA: »No, he’s a tailor and he does a lot of the coats for modern day hero movies, action movies. There’s a certain type of coat he would call a hero coat. If you look back at those movies, I have a feeling you might have something to do with those coats and that look.«

Melvin Van Peebles: »Let’s roll the story back a little bit to an earlier story: I said I used to live on a park bench in front of the Women’s House Of Detention. One night I’m on the park bench and I hear this voice - “No, I’m fucking cold.” And I talk to myself: “Melvin, make me one promise, the next time we make money, buy me a coat.” So the next time I made money, I had that coat made, a long coat for stealing bread. Then at night, to keep warm you put newspaper in your pants leg, so that’s what I did. Maybe that became the style, I don’t know, but I had the coat made and every now and then, if things are tough, I go to the closet and there’s my coat. So if I’m back on the park bench, I’m nice and warm.«

RBMA: »Thank you very much.«

(applause)

Melvin Van Peebles: »You guys, you don’t know what’s happening. You think you’re applauding me, but I’m applauding you for trying something, to make something happen and make something of your life. That’s what it’s all about. Don’t thank me, thank you. You mean I wasn’t smoking something? I’m really here and you guys are doing something, that’s wonderful. Just keep on doing it, that will be all the applause I need.«