Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)

Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) ★½

Summer of Sham: Questlove & Co. Commit Elderly Abuse

Near the beginning of SUMMER OF SOUL, Stevie Wonder takes the stage. I’m at the Angelika watching this incredible footage. Stevie sits at the drum set and does a mind-bending drum solo. I feel tears form in my eyes. And I remember the last time this happened to me: watching Stevie take the stage with The Rolling Stones partway through the screening of COCKSUCKER BLUES I caught at Film Forum in 2016. And I realize that for the second time in 5 years, I’m in a Manhattan theater tearing up at footage of Stevie Wonder. And then, after 30 seconds, he’s muted.

Imagine if GIMME SHELTER was made in 2021 as a patronizing piece of Hulu content:

*14 seconds of The Rolling Stones playing “Under My Thumb”*

*
music is half-muted*

64-year old Altamont attendee who couldn’t possibly have a single meaningful memory of the night: “
I remember being there, at Altamont, in California, and seeing the people with their bright clothes and seeing Hell’s Angels and seeing Meredith Hunter, a beautiful young man… and realizing that it was the moment that the ‘60s died.” And then this happening over every song in the film.

This is the vibe of SUMMER OF SOUL. Potentially less than 3 full songs (!) are shown in this 2-hour long puff piece. Instead, these incredible lost performances are destroyed, shot through with aimless retroactive cultural commentary which will make any fan of music scream in agony. The central irony of this film is that it posits that black events of this stature were buried in place of “whiter” events like Woodstock, but the film restates rather than negates this trend; the film of WOODSTOCK thankfully did not feel the need to intercut its concert footage with vapid declarations of its importance.

SUMMER OF SOUL is a heartbreaking work of cultural erasure, imposing a tacky and artless framework around and through some of the greatest live music footage of the 20th century. If you need Lin-Manuel Miranda and some New York Times reporters to explain to you why a Sly & the Family Stone or NINA SIMONE(!!!) performance are worthy of your viewing attention, you’re beyond saving — you have no business proclaiming a passing interest in music, let alone watching a music doc. I wish the producers of this had the same faith in their audience.

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