Melvin van Peebles

Torsten Schmidt

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; a man 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 music last night, and the other things you people are doing, wow, it’s a f---ing dream come true. This is what I imagined, and I’m very appreciative for Red Bull asking me and Eothen for putting me in contact. So, if you have any questions, just ask me, I don’t mind.

Torsten Schmidt

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 bored, rich kids. Going back to the way most of us would be getting in touch with your work, it was probably through the films of your son and his comrades and their cause, and then going back and realizing they were quoting films that were made before we were even born. Then you realize, hey, f--- it, you don’t need to go to the best film schools 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, I was 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 US 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 I 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 work the cable cars… And the guy said, “You know your book is just like a movie.” I said, “Shit, I’ll go into the movies.” But there was 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. However, when I finished my films, 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,” I thought, “Somebody who understands me!” So, I went to Paris and made my first feature there after being, what we call a clochard – I used to beg in the streets and, little by little, I learned to speak French. Then I wrote the score and then I made another movie later called Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, and I wrote the music for that, and that started 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.

Torsten Schmidt

So, out of the maybe 25 professions you mastered – and I’m just guessing here, I may have missed two or three – the common thread going through all of these 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 so I 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 what I’m saying, please stop me and I’ll make it clear.

Anyway, I was a clochard, a bum, a tramp, and 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. There was this whole wonderful, wonderful world of people talking to their loved ones. I thought, “Wow, this would make a great song.” So, I composed this song, “Hey, fourth floor. Hey, 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. They 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 sorts of stories and I 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 the music, sort of “Hey baby, bap-do-daa,” but they never said anything. And I wanted to tell a story, so I brought down the orchestrations and raised up the story.

Another time, I was sitting in a little restaurant and someone went along, and everyone said, “Hey, look at that!” And I turned around too late to see the girl going past. But that gave me an idea for a story, which we called “Catch That on the Corner” from the 1968 album Brer Soul, the story of a blind guy who fell in love and he’s asking his buddy to explain 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 these stories again. Not just, “I’ll meet you at the bar in five minutes.” It was stories. Because I wanted to do political work, that’s how the music got politicized, then that evolved into rap and LL Cool J and the Last Poets, that’s how it all happened.

Torsten Schmidt

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

Melvin van Peebles

There’s a whole French tradition called le chanson réaliste, 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 get those 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 we’ll have sex in my dreams, 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 the 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.

Torsten Schmidt

There are some pictures of you as a little boy on the south side of Chicago, and it might be worth talking about there, 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 Old West. Just looking out the window I’d see nine people killed. But you didn’t think about it in that way at that time at all. There’s a difference between living a life that these people lived. Take Kanye West and these people, their bling is they are aware that the world is watching them. There’s a difference when you’re just doing things. There’s a song called “Keep a Knockin’” [sings]. So, what’s the song really saying? When the blacks left the South and would come north, many times the men couldn’t find work and the woman had to become a prostitute. She’s saying to her lover, the real man, that she’s got a customer. 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 a different way of something being. Hold on, let me see if I can find this shit … I want to put on probably one of my favorite songs. Does this thing work?

Torsten Schmidt

I hope so.

Melvin van Peebles

OK, we’re in business then… 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 anyway, 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. Now, music hadn’t been done like this in many years, but I re-started this stuff. OK, play it. The first one.

Melvin van Peebles

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 you to play just one more piece of another song, please. Number six. I was talking to you earlier about “10th and Greenwich.” These songs had been put in this form, because people didn’t know what a picaresque and colorful life they were living. They allowed people to start living this life.

Melvin van Peebles

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 on the farm, in the cotton field, etc, etc. But when we came north it was lost. It’s been taken on and the guys have done beautiful work with the rapping and other parts of the music, and that’s what happened. 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 like this had been done like that. Now it seems ubiquitous, everybody is doing it albeit in a much smoother version. These songs eventually became a big Broadway hit. At 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, “Well, this is how life is.” But that’s not my personality, I’m sort of a fighter. An old bag lady comes forward out of the audience and begins to tell her story, putting everything into a completely different perspective.

Torsten Schmidt

Can you explain what a bag lady is?

Melvin van Peebles

A bag lady is a clochard, a lady tramp. Throughout the play, she’s been wandering around, just watching everything and probably everyone thinks she’s insane. But that’s not it at all. She understands, and she sums up in this case the author’s point of view about racism at the time.

(music: Melvin van Peebles – “Put a Curse on You”)

Torsten Schmidt

Just to get the context right for people who didn’t get it at first, this is the end of a Broadway show, a theater show, on one of the world’s most famous theater streets. At the end of a play that already talks about things that are not exactly classic Broadway material, that’s about as intense as audience interaction can go, if you’re not Bertolt Brecht or someone.

Melvin van Peebles

What happened, it changed everything. Not only was it about something, but it made money. At that juncture, the doors that were closed to [Big Daddy] Kane, LL Cool J and everyone else opened because the American dollar says if you can make money, then you can say what you want to say.

Torsten Schmidt

There’s a great 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 your message. The people were so hungry to hear themselves, to see their thoughts – ones that many times they didn’t even know they were thinking – projected until they bought it.

Torsten Schmidt

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 and think, “Whatever I have to say doesn’t mean anything to anyone else – I can just 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, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song. Now, I have to go to the Museum of Modern Art in New York – they’re giving me a big restoration of my film, which is a huge honor and all of that. But when that film came out, only two theaters in the entire United States, in the world, would show it. Not two cities, two theaters. But I knew my audience, and that was so successful, the film, until of course everyone else took the film. After that you had Shaft, 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. But still that had to carry part of the message. I don’t know if everybody is aware of the music of Sweetback.

Torsten Schmidt

Before we go into the music of Sweetback, I guess, we could talk for days about the signifying moments of that film. But, according to the American ideal, it was the biggest grossing movie of 1972, which obviously gives you a lot of relevance in the American mainstream thinking in the first place. But you achieved it with pretty radical statements in visual form and musical form. I guess, your average Oklahoma audience would be disturbed by the opening credits alone.

Melvin van Peebles

It’s quite complicated. It makes common sense, but it’s still complicated. No, I take that back, it was only complicated if you’re a racist. The major American cities had large African-American populations, and the movie theaters were closing because they had nothing relevant that they wanted to see. So, I simply wrote a relevant movie. I probably made $8 million before three white people had even seen the f---ing movie. But then, once everybody starts seeing and starts understanding the relevance, then it could not be ignored anymore. The music, Quincy Jones he says to always leave a little room for luck, for God, or whatever. When I’d written and shot the movie, I hadn’t yet done the music. I was looking around for a group, because I didn’t have time to teach people how to play as a group. 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, about 12 of them. And she said, “You must go see these guys.” And 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 really read or write music, I hummed it to them, taught them my musical method. They took the method and 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. Music came after the film. Even if Hollywood bought a Broadway musical, they’d bring it out as a movie, then maybe bring out the album. Since I had no money, I had this idea, “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!” Nobody had thought of it. So, then, I was a little bit known by this time, all the DJs, the black DJs and the hip white DJs, 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. That changed everything. That’s when 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.

Torsten Schmidt

Do you think anyone in the Panthers at that time would’ve imagined the 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, “Yo, boys, go and see this film.”

Melvin van Peebles

The real answer is, “F---, yes!” I expected it. Often, when I’d 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. It’s been like a rowboat in the fog. You know when you go hitchhiking, if you stand there long enough you know someone should pick you up. You can’t afford to ask yourself that question, because you could 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 had hoped these things would come to pass. I did not 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.

Torsten Schmidt

When you say your politics is to win, who do you win against?

Melvin van Peebles

Whoever’s f---ing with me.

Torsten Schmidt

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 check with your mouth that your ass can’t cash. I had nothing to lose. I had nothing to lose. So, there you go.

Torsten Schmidt

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 on African-American movies. I was so fed up that they would talk and talk for four hours straight 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?” Um, okay. I walked out because I figured that place wasn’t for me, but I understand you had similar incidents in academic 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].

Torsten Schmidt

You were in a very highbrow discussion and you were not agreeing 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 [laughs]. But he paid me. If not, I would’ve dropped him.

Torsten Schmidt

And, I guess in similar incidents, professors in highbrow universities weren’t safe from you, either.

Melvin van Peebles

I won’t take it. What the hell? Life is short. 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, otherwise you’ll get an ulcer.

Torsten Schmidt

And being in the military, you’ll also learn there are ups and downs along your journey if you really want to get somewhere.

Melvin van Peebles

I don’t really have a lot of ups and downs. Once I decided that it’s all part of the trip, you don’t mind. It’s just, “Oh, OK.” In fact, with that philosophy, you get laid a lot too. “What if she says yes or no?” Durr! Ask! You’d be surprised guys, there are a lot of nice ladies out there.

Torsten Schmidt

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 pretending to [laughs].

Torsten Schmidt

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

Melvin van Peebles

Exactly! Not very complicated [applause].

Torsten Schmidt

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.

Torsten Schmidt

What’s the difference?

Melvin van Peebles

Well, once somebody says, “Blah-blah-blah,” then someone else says, “Don’t do that, motherf---er.” 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.

Torsten Schmidt

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 f---ing mouth shut, he wouldn’t get caught.

Torsten Schmidt

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 make him say, “My feet don’t fail me now.”

Melvin van Peebles

Yes, that’s not the Bible.

Torsten Schmidt

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 songs I do, because many of those beliefs were holding the people in bondage. So, I took the subtlety of those things and turned it on its head. I’m not very big, so I use judo, I use the strength of my 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”)

Melvin van Peebles

What I did was take – one of the reasons the Black Panthers liked this movie so much – I took all of the major cultural fears of the black community and debunked them, tore them down. That’s why he’s being chased by dogs at the end and kills them. And, also this belief in God and “the Lord will help,” etc, etc – that’s why he says, “Come on feet, cruise for me. 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, “Hey, there is a way out of this.”

Torsten Schmidt

Modest as he is, he’s also been the [only] black trader [on the floor of the American Stock Exchange]. I find it interesting, because when you look at the documents and so on, if you were at a European university, you’d probably be called an “African-American trader.” Which one would you prefer?

Melvin van Peebles

I don’t give a shit [laughs].

Torsten Schmidt

Nevertheless, this was another first, you had a lot of firsts throughout your career. But I guess the trading one and the Wall Street one, especially given the events of the last ten days, is a really special one.

Melvin van Peebles

Hmm. What happened about how I went to work on Wall Street 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 we were talking and the guy said something and I could do the numbers in my head. He said, “You can do that?” And he got the computer out and realized I was right. And one of the guys sitting with us, who was particularly Machiavellian, said, “Wow.” He was a big marker on Wall Street and a troublemaker, too, and being so big, he got me a job to be a trader on Wall Street.

Torsten Schmidt

How did you find it?

Melvin van Peebles

It was quite interesting. As an artiste, you write something, and you do this and this and you’re never finally sure it’s made it. But on Wall Street, if you’ve made a bad trade, by the evening, you know you made a mistake. However, interestingly, 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 were elevated to the full height of where I was. 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.

Torsten Schmidt

Part of the American dream is getting all those riches, so I guess up until ten days ago, Wall Street was 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 f--- do I need Wall Street for?

Torsten Schmidt

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 loud-mouth who’s ready to back it up [laughs].

Torsten Schmidt

Which got you pretty far in the end.

Melvin van Peebles

If tomorrow I discovered making ethanol, or being a planter in such and such, would help justice for the minorities I am interested in, then I would do that. I don’t give a shit.

Torsten Schmidt

When you were on the floor in Wall Street, on the south tip of 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 clear about revolution. Do you mean racial revolution or the whole structural revolution?

Torsten Schmidt

That was actually part of the question, hidden away there.

Melvin van Peebles

Well, you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

Torsten Schmidt

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… 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, but everybody. Maybe it’s being an astronomer and looking out there. We’re fairly fortunate as a race – and by that 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 be effective. One victory at a time, and part of that victory was: You guys must realize that doing this music now, that is making that change. People from all over the world are sitting down and seeing the 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 easier for the greedy to pit one group against the other. But, 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 motherf---er’s ass. Okay, so be it.

Torsten Schmidt

What part of that ass-kicking is just for entertainment?

Melvin van Peebles

I met her last night. [laughs].

Torsten Schmidt

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

Melvin van Peebles

You’ve got to realize something, Christ was nothing but a carpenter in his hometown. Sometimes you go step by step. That’s a very interesting question and I want to repeat it. My first feature [film] 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 got to do what you’ve got to do to get where you’ve got to go, that’s all.

Torsten Schmidt

When you do something, no matter whether it’s a song or a text in a book or a movie script, and there is 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 that I walk on water, and I do what the f--- I like. I make movies, I do music and everything else 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 hope people are going to like it, but if they don’t, I do. I can sit there and watch Sweetback or Don’t Play Us Cheap and have a good old time. The worst thing you can ever have is do something for others and they don’t like it anyway, then you’re really f---ed [laughter].

Torsten Schmidt

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 as a matter of fact. That was a good sequence. You see, you don’t get to do these things the way I did them that’s any fun. There’s a sequence in Sweetback, so everybody understands, where they blow up a police car. That’s a lot of money, and you’ve got to have permits, and this and that and the other. I had an idea. I go on Friday to the place which allows you to have these explosions. I put it in 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. That’s all. That’s how I got away with that. 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. I said, “Wait a minute, you’ve been paid.” “We want to leave.” 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 no f---ing fun, that was just getting the f---ing job done. It’s fun when people are applauding.

Torsten Schmidt

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 and writing the script to having to deal with this army of people, and you have this vision… I guess, it’s a similar thing on a smaller scale if you’re in a band.

Melvin van Peebles

It’s like with my typewriter – everybody knows me. Nobody f---s with me. Do it or your ass is mine. My group moves, they don’t move, they ain’t there, or they’re there without bandages on. Period. I’m not the Salvation Army.

Torsten Schmidt

Christmas carols saved for later.

Melvin van Peebles

There you go. But you do that hopefully, so 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? What the f---? You wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t done that.” There’s nothing major or good, or anything else about it, it’s just getting the job done.

Torsten Schmidt

I guess you need to clarify a little bit, because most of us have been brought up in the longest period of people. What do you mean by “war questions”?

Melvin van Peebles

When I was making Sweetback, the Teamsters, the labor 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.

Torsten Schmidt

Speaking of the Hollywood system, in another movie you pulled a reverse Al Jolson and dealt with the whole thing of like...

Melvin van Peebles

Which movie?

Torsten Schmidt

The one with the face covering.

Melvin van Peebles

Oh, Watermelon Man.

Torsten Schmidt

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. Then he has to live with this sudden blackness and how it affects his life. I didn’t write this script, it was originally written by someone else. There are a lot of funny, complicated stories. 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. The major prize was to shoot in Hollywood. I held out, I said, “OK, I’ll shoot the movie, if I can shoot in Hollywood.” So, they let me shoot there and they gave me this script. It was nice, but what happened in the script, 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 would 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, I added the things I wanted to add, 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 hey, what else is new?

Torsten Schmidt

Did you hear about the movie Tropic Thunder?

Melvin van Peebles

No.

Torsten Schmidt

OK, next one, save that for later. Do you know James Logan in LA? 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?

Torsten Schmidt

No, he’s a tailor, maybe a leather tailor. 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 as well, adapting it and bringing it into popular culture.

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 f---ing cold.” Hmm? And I think, “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 sleeves and 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 particularly tough, I go to the closet and there’s my coat. So, if I’m back on the park bench, I’m warm. That’s not very complicated actually.

Torsten Schmidt

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Melvin van Peebles.

[Applause]