American - Actor | August 21, 1932 -
With 'Sweetback,' I just put it together a little bit at a time. I didn't do it on anybody's grant. I did it like any other young executive - by cheating and stealing!
Melvin Van Peebles
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I've never been to film school. I had to leave this country to make a film. All they would let me do in Hollywood was be a messenger.
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My first feature, I made in France. There's a great respect for the author there - they don't change your stuff.
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Before I made 'Sweetback,' I had a three-picture deal with Columbia and enough juice, if I was real clever with it, to proclaim that I wanted to do an independent film.
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When we talk about 'Sweetback,' yes, it stars the whole black movement, but it's also the first time an independent film made that kind of money and was that successful and taken seriously.
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Personally, I do movies the way I cook: I put in what I like in case nobody else likes it and I have to eat it for the rest of the week.
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I walk down the street; the garbagemen will shout at me, and we'll talk. That's a pleasure when people feel, 'If he can do it, I can, too.'
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Scars are the price you pay for success.
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There is a downside to affordable technology, and that's mediocrity. I mean, just 'cause you can afford it don't mean you can do it.
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You have to not let yourself believe you can't. Do what you can do within the framework of what you have, and don't look outside - look inside.
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You've got to really check on what you're doing: check and recheck it seven other times to be prepared. Sometimes, people get carried away with the artistic-ness of the endeavor and don't quite have their game face on when the time comes. It's always a pretty costly mistake.
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Truth of the matter is, I can't even read or write music.
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