Robert V. Cattani: the Golden Age of Blaxploitation
This is Robert V. Cattani, lover of one of modern civilization’s greatest gifts to mankind – the motion picture. Growing up as a cinephile, I have come to love and appreciate many types of films. As much as I am drawn to mainstream cinema’s cream of the crop, I also gravitate to films that tap a deeper realm of my psyche. From Noir and B-movies to Mockumentary and Kung Fu, niche movies to me are as precious as their crowd-pleasing brothers and sisters.
Riding the early 70’s torrent of social upheaval, Black cinema aggressively began forging an identity, giving birth to the genre called Blaxploitation. In this blog, I, Robert V. Cattani, explore films from this provocative subcategory.
- Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassssss Song, 1971– One of the most important films of the genre, this triple X-rated film broke new ground starring writer and director Melvin Van Peebles as the renegade pimp Sweetback, who hits the road after hacking up the two cops he witnessed beating up a young black man.
- Shaft, 1971– If Sweetback set the tone for the genre, this film raised the quintessential Blaxploitation hero to iconic status. Richard Roundtree is the anti-hero, an authority-bucking cop who dismantles the Italian mafia. Shaft’s lewd funk score (“who’s the black private dick that’s a sex machine for all the chicks?”) established the genre’s signature sound of pulsing guitar staccatos and rapid high-hats.
- Blacula, 1972– In this Blaxploitation-B-movie hybrid, Count Dracula, both evil and racist, turns African Prince Mamuwalde into a vampire named “Blacula.” After two centuries of coffin imprisonment, Blacula hits the streets of present-day L.A. looking for his lost wife, only to bring death and destruction. A camp champion, it won the very first “Best Horror Film” award at the 1972 Saturn Awards.