Joe Angio is the director of How To Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It), a documentary about the life and times of the legendary filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles. Peebles is a pioneer in art, politics and pop culture. His work is still revered by many. Rolling out spoke to Angio about filmmaking, Melvin Van Peebles, and more.
What are your origins as a filmmaker and a magazine editor? You worked at Men’s Journal and VIBE magazine before pursuing a film career.
To be honest with you, lot of my professional career has been happenstance. I actually started in live TV production working for the cable stations that televised all of the Chicago sports teams, mostly Bulls and White Sox telecast. At the time, my brother who was the longtime director for the sports stations, had access to this video equipment so a friend of mine and I made this documentary on Mardi Gras in New Orleans. The documentary had success in Chicago and ended up being on the PBS station as well. A couple of years later, we made a 50-minute documentary on Chicago playground basketball because at the time, Chicago served as a breeding ground for new talent because back in 1991, the NBA had more pros from Chicago than in any other city. Fast-forward to me moving to New York, I couldn’t find any work upon moving there so a friend whom I knew at Rolling Stone magazine hired me as a fact-checker. Rolling Stone then started Men’s Journal, and I worked at Men’s Journal as an editor, then this same friend moved from Rolling Stone to VIBE Magazine and from there, I became the managing editor at VIBE.
What influences did you draw from Melvin Van Peebles and his endeavors before you had the chance to work directly with him? Like what were some of the aspects of his work that you studied? Sweetback was covered extensively throughout the documentary.
That’s a really good question. I think my research on him was more about his life because I didn’t have access to the work until I met Melvin. I knew the contours of the story that we had to tell but I didn’t have the access I needed so I went seeking out all of the albums that he did, the books that he wrote, and the people that knew him the most. I like to use the interviews that I do in all of my films as the research because if I’m finding out something that’s fresh and enlightening, then the viewer will as well. My friend and I literally were a two-man team throughout this entire process. He would shoot, and I would do the interviews. Our first interview with Melvin was three hours long, and the film took eight years to make in its entirety! So it took my friend and I meeting with him in order to get what we needed for the film.
What surprised you the most about Melvin Van Peebles during the process? I know the documentary was only 85 minutes long, but so much was captured in that time.
Well for me, the moving parts kept changing because he’s covered so much ground. This guy literally wrote five novels in French, he created what’s considered to be the first black exploitation film, and he’s an an undeniable influence on hip-hop. From my days at VIBE and even before VIBE, I always heard and knew from tracing it backwards that Africa Bambaataa and Gil Scott Heron said they got their influences from Melvin and then when you go and listen to the albums, it all starts to make sense. The move to Europe he made to study astronomy at the University of Amsterdam was another move that made me realize how impactful and innovative he truly was. It was one incident after another that proved that Melvin Van Peebles was truly fearless.
“How to Eat Your Watermelon in White Company (and Enjoy It)” will be available on DVD beginning February 2 with new bonus features including a new video conversation with Melvin Van Peebles, TV news commentaries and live concert performances.
-andre j. ellington
