Just days before his classic film Sweet Sweetback’s Baadassss Song was slated for a special revival screening at the New York Film Festival, and less than a week before the Criterion Collection will release a box set of his “essential films,” legendary filmmaker and actor Melvin Van Peebles has died.
Van Peebles’ passing was announced by the Criterion Collection, who said he died on Tuesday night “at home with family.”
That Criterion Collection box set — which includes Story of a Three-Day Pass, Watermelon Man, Sweet Sweetback, and 1972’s Don’t Play Us Cheap — is sadly all too timely now.
The elder Van Peebles worked a series of jobs before becoming an author and then a filmmaker.