The Soundtrack and the Fury
EBM HUMPHREYS and VICTORIA KINGHAM
From its description, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat, a feature documentary by Johan Grimonprez, which showed at Kino last Wednesday, sounds as though it might be a story about African-American jazz musicians involved in a 1960s protest group, perhaps trying to bring attention to a crisis in Africa. The movie is in fact a thrilling and mesmerising visual and musical essay, on the jaw-droppingly disgraceful response of European colonisers and their US bedfellows to the potent beginnings of decolonisation in Africa during the Cold War.
Ghana became independent in 1957 and Congo wanted to follow suit – by 1960 they had met in Belgium to agree terms. As despots tend towards despotism, so the Belgians delivered an insulting puppet-version of independence, requiring the democratically-elected leader Patrice Lumumba to take a stand. All centres on the country’s natural wealth, particularly its vast uranium deposits – of course it does – and the US’s not-very-Cold desire to amass arms.
Amongst other things, this film reveals a refreshing perspective on Russia’s role as a world power – not via the director’s opinions but via archive footage of Nikita Khrushchev making speeches, joyfully thumping his fists and bear-hugging his way through numerous UN assemblies in New York and ultimately proposing that colonialism be banned. Also priceless here is footage of Fidel Castro making his way to the UN, meeting with Malcolm X, and the latter’s holiday photos.
This prize-winning narrative draws heavily on autobiographical works by prolific political activist and human rights advocate Andrée Blouin (My Country, Africa) and by In Koli Jean Bofane (Congo Inc.) and Conor Cruise O’Brien (To Katanga and Back), using visual captions to pepper the story with astonishing insights and revelations.
But the thrill it delivers comes from the way that the music of protest, jazz, is not only referenced as the eponymous ‘soundtrack’ but presented with archive close-ups. To be clear, we are talking about the greats here–not only Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln who were directly involved in storming the UN, but Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, and many more. America publicly adopted, indeed exploited, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie as ambassadors for a wholly American music – which of course, it is – yet in their own country they and all African-Americans were segregated, denied basic civil rights and resources, and treated as an underclass.
Thus the unconventional and ‘free’ jazz that emerged in the States during the fifties and sixties has always been much more than a musical revolution; it was bound up with emerging civil rights protest movements, and all of its major proponents were deeply aware of the paradox and hypocrisy endemic to a deeply racist culture. Several of Charles Mingus’ compositions had titles that specifically referred to political events. Even earlier in the century, the brilliant Duke Ellington (who was not only a musical but a political trailblazer) demanded equal access to segregated dance halls and was active in supporting the NAACP. In the latter part of the 1960s Nina Simone was vociferous in her support of the Civil Rights movement.
The musical story is wonderfully told in this film; it isn’t always chronologically parallel – it isn’t meant to be – but the interspersion of the musical footage highlights racial attitudes within dominant colonial powers, a parallel struggle.
It’s no surprise that this is up for Best Documentary Feature in this year’s Oscars – and it can be found on various large streaming platforms (see justwatch.com) or purchased on DVD.
Kino-Teatr, Norman Road, St Leonards | kino-teatr.co.uk will hopefully show this film again later in the year when they hold their annual documentary week. Watch out for it.
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