Delayed Reaction: Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Premise: A documentary about a music festival in Harlem that happened the same summer as Woodstock.

 

I must say, the efficiency of this movie is pretty impressive. At only 2 hours, it manages to be a concert doc, a history of the Harlem Cultural Festival, a history of numerous acts at the festival, and a history of the black community at that time. First time director Questlove assembles a large group of talking heads - some famous, some present at the festival, and some performing at the festival - and makes something pretty great.

 

You see, the Harlem Cultural Festival was a summer series of concerts in Harlem in 1969. It featured some of the biggest primarily black artists at the time and was rightfully called the "black Woodstock". Incredibly, the whole thing was professionally filmed and the footage sat for decades because no one was interested in releasing it. That ended up being Questlove's gain, as he was able to pull pristine footage of everyone from Sly and the Family Stone to Stevie Wonder to B.B. King for the doc. Normally, the footage of these performances is accompanied by some history lesson about where the band came from, what kind of success they had, people remembering what it was like to see the performance live, or even larger social context. For example, a performance by Martin Luther King Jr.'s favorite singer led to a discussion about him. And the histories weren't just of the big bands. This is filled with all these nuggets of musical history that I was less familiar with. Like, now I'm curious to look up The Fifth Dimension.

 

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the movie is when Questlove shows footage of the performances to the singers or people who were in the audience. Since this footage has been unreleased for 50 years, it's the first time any of them are seeing this. One interviewer even thanks them for him showing this because, since no one ever mentioned this festival, he thought he was making it up or exaggerating it in his memories.

 

I don't have a bad thing to say about this doc. It's more disciplinely-edited than Woodstock and more than justifies the all the talking heads taking away from the performances. This movie is just, plain a good time.

 

Side Thought: What are fair odds that the "(...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)" part gets dropped by the time this is released? 95% that by the time Searchlight and Hulu release it, the title is just "Summer of Soul". Higher?

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend