Director, novelist, sometime options trader Melvin Van Peebles died September 22, a week before the Criterion Collection was set to unveil its detailed totem to the filmmaker's early work.
It is too easy to throw superlatives around when talking about filmmakers. Many directors with a decent enough filmography, who have been around long enough to be forgotten about can attain such a status. The recently passed Melvin Van Peebles, however, is one of the only American filmmakers who truly deserves every beautiful descriptive that is laid upon him. He was a bona fide renaissance man. Actor, filmmaker, playwright, novelist, and composer – amongst other things, the man was a true artist. As an independent filmmaker, Van Peebles should be placed on the same pillars as white counterparts such as John Cassavetes or Roger Corman.
Melvin Van Peebles left behind an astonishing legacy as a true innovator. He was that rare talent like Charlie Chaplin or Satyajit Ray whose dizzying multi-hyphenate skills force even those who are the most skeptical of the auteur theory to admit that at least some artists truly do shape a considerable portion of their work in a collaborative medium. Criterion’s set collects the first four of Van Peebles’s eight features, and the stylistic range on display across a five-year period showcases one of the most brilliant American filmmakers of his time.
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