Vision as a Song
There are few conversations that make people as uncomfortable as talking about race and racial injustice. This scene in Melvin Van Peeble’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) brings the viewer to the verge of walking away during these couple minutes, and it is definitely not the dialogue or the narrative that takes us there. This scene intentionally breaks conventional editing and filming practices to recreate the sense of mayhem and confusion that the black community feels on a regular basis. Paired with a jazz song with random riffs, the viewer hopes that visually there will be some harmony found anywhere in the montage, however the composition will not allow it. One of the most disorienting out of all the choices made has to do with the movement and direction of the camera. To start, Melvin Van Peebles’s use of parallel editing is showing us the chase from both perspectives. However, the inconsistency of the screen direction loses the viewer in chaos making it so that we have to play the game of ‘find Sweetback’ just like the officers in the film. Almost every shot that …show more content…
These cuts start to almost beg for the viewer to feel frustrated as our foster parent says her part from one angle, and then another angle, with slight variations in the line each time. We suddenly have children breaking the fourth wall and staring into us as she tells us that all the children she has end up bad when they get old and they are taken from her. This conversation is frustrating in turn because we never get the shot/reverse shot that we are so used to, furthermore in each take no matter what angle the camera is shooting from, our actress is looking in the same spot. With no shot/ reverse shot we would expect at least an eyeline match cut, but instead we are met with children who are breaking the fourth wall implying that she is talking to the
There are few conversations that make people as uncomfortable as talking about race and racial injustice. This scene in Melvin Van Peeble’s Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song (1971) brings the viewer to the verge of walking away during these couple minutes, and it is definitely not the dialogue or the narrative that takes us there. This scene intentionally breaks conventional editing and filming practices to recreate the sense of mayhem and confusion that the black community feels on a regular basis. Paired with a jazz song with random riffs, the viewer hopes that visually there will be some harmony found anywhere in the montage, however the composition will not allow it. One of the most disorienting out of all the choices made has to do with the movement and direction of the camera. To start, Melvin Van Peebles’s use of parallel editing is showing us the chase from both perspectives. However, the inconsistency of the screen direction loses the viewer in chaos making it so that we have to play the game of ‘find Sweetback’ just like the officers in the film. Almost every shot that …show more content…
These cuts start to almost beg for the viewer to feel frustrated as our foster parent says her part from one angle, and then another angle, with slight variations in the line each time. We suddenly have children breaking the fourth wall and staring into us as she tells us that all the children she has end up bad when they get old and they are taken from her. This conversation is frustrating in turn because we never get the shot/reverse shot that we are so used to, furthermore in each take no matter what angle the camera is shooting from, our actress is looking in the same spot. With no shot/ reverse shot we would expect at least an eyeline match cut, but instead we are met with children who are breaking the fourth wall implying that she is talking to the