Sweetback Movie Symbolism

The buck desires white women not because they are beautiful and satiate his Dionysiac yearnings, but primarily because they are the symbols of white power and the last bastion of racial purity to be conquered. Possessing the body of the white woman leaves the Man nothing to pride himself on. Having a craving for white women should not, therefore, be read narrowly as a phallika, as a Black Shinto Kanamara Matsuri enabled by loose censorship strictures in a post-code Hollywood. It speaks to more than being an over-sexed instinct. This use of the buck stereotype can be read as an act of revolt in which a camera virtuoso turns a vile practice to good account. Only the buck allows him to push the envelope and stands him in good stead when it comes

Three illustrative examples, placed at two crucial junctures of the movie, are worth mentioning. Firstly, when Sweetback beats the cops in defence of Momo, he is literally looked up to from a low camera position with an in-and-out zoom that is repeated to mimick his movement of beating (pun intended) the system. Secondly, in an even more elaborate scene that graphically explains the power dynamic at play, when Sweetback is hiding from the patrol officer, he is framed alone from a high angle crouching behind a bar while the officer is shot from a low angle looking over the counter. At the moment when the former springs to impale the latter with a billiard stick, both actors share the same middle shot frame. When Sweetback succeeds in pushing the stick through the officer’s chest, he is shot in extreme close-ups from the point of view of the downed officer. Sweetback has jubilantly sent the white power hierarchy tumbling down. The spanner is accurately thrown in the works. Thirdly, the final instance takes place after winning the sex duel. Sweetback stands tall in the middle of the bikers ring in the nude, triumphant, proud of his rousing success, basking in an aureole, while the white woman lies still on the ground, defiled and submissive. Sweetback is given a bike to flee on, a real one-percenter who is a true

By articulating the possibility of other styles, Sweetback defamiliarises the dominant Hollywood style and throws into sharp relief its mythologised naturalness. Freeze frames are employed as a commemorative device that halts the storyline and allows viewers time to take in the hero’s victories. One instance is the freeze on Sweetback on top of Prez. An acquisition from his days in France, the jump cut (a staple of the French nouvelle vague) is adeptly utilised to trump the continuity editing that is a hallmark of classical Hollywood. The effect being one of discrediting the constructedness of the Hollywood narrative and images by causing the style to come apart at the seams. Repeating the same shot from different angles is another technique that comments on the slanted and racist angle white Hollywood has grown used to look from. When a naked Prez enters the duel ring, she is shot from four angles while her call “Well!” is repeated each time the angle changes. Van Peebles proves that there are multiple ways to say the same thing. Superimposed shots always present Sweetback in higher contrast on top, as if telling the audience that these images of the black back are to take the place of the older images. The fade always keeps Sweetback’s frame at the expense of the