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| Director Alain Gomis |
REWIND & PLAY B France Germany (65 mi) 2022 d: Alain Gomis
It brings tears to my eyes when I see the shit that my father was going through. —T.S. Monk Jr. from Rewind & Play - Forum 2022
This is an oddly unorthodox little film that reveals the inherent harm in showcasing such a unique jazz artist in such a conventional light, entirely based upon two hours of unused archival footage from a December 1969 French television interview with Thelonious Monk before his final European concert tour performance at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, outtake footage we were never intended to see, where the utter indifference on display from interviewer Henri Renaud to the artist during the recording is difficult to watch, as the spotlight instead is on the sheer inadequacy of the white media who seem unqualified to tell his story, yet that doesn’t stop them from telling one anyway. Throughout the interview on the French TV show Jazz Portrait, we painfully witness how Monk’s brief responses are immediately deemed unsatisfactory to his interviewers, and are interrupted, dismissed, spoken over in French, and edited out. In stark contrast, the shots of him playing the piano allow his music to express the deeply complex humanity of the man, whose nature seems unfathomable to the television industry at the time. Leaning over the piano, Renaud attempts to create an intimate setting, trying to engage the artist in an on-going dialogue, yet a production crew of at least a dozen are continually hovering nearby, walking back and forth, forced to endure retake after retake, showing a complete disregard for how they are affecting Monk’s curt responses, as the artist’s life is manipulated and trivialized to such an extent that in apparent frustration Monk gets up to leave at one point, but is convinced to stay through what appears to be hands-on physical restraint, revealing just how agonizing this insulting experience is to him, as he’s treated like a commodity they are trying to sell, like a packaged product, exposing the shocking disconnect between the black artist and the white media. This is a film that is not for everyone, barely over an hour in length, yet it’s a reflection of the casual racism that existed in the 60’s, as the KKK’s influence in the American South was everpresent in the region, where arrests, bombings, and murders of blacks, as well as whites sympathetic to their cause, were all too commonplace, while France was fighting colonial wars in a misguided attempt to hold onto their control of black African colonies. Made by the director of Félicité (2017), born of a Senegalese father and a French Guinee-Bissau mother, Alain Gomis studied art history and earned a master’s degree in cinematographic studies at the Sorbonne. What this film exposes is how easily black history is erased, as one of the preeminent jazz artists of our time is literally silenced before our eyes, his words purged from the record, and replaced by a dismissive white establishment that prefers to tell a more palatable version to mainstream audiences that is free of controversy, but it amounts to censorship, an act filled with controversy, especially for artists who are the poets of each generation. However, it’s an immersive experience where you’re in the presence of Thelonious Monk for one solid hour, yet it’s also a revealing look at how celebrities are packaged, and how black entertainers, in particular, are infantilized, placing words in their mouths supposedly to protect them from themselves, where what amounts to friendly intentions become misrepresentation, which, as it turns out, is fairly typical of the daily black experience even today.
The clips include his arrival at the airport, when passengers actually exited planes to the ground, walking outdoors to the gates, accompanied by his effervescent wife Nellie (wearing très chic eyeglasses), meeting up with Renaud at a bar for a quick drink before heading into the Montmartre television studio. Easily the most watchable aspect of this film are the lengthy piano passages from Monk, as there is no one else on the planet who plays like him, universally respected by his peers. We have seen rare glimpses of his massive talent on display mixed with his quirky personality in Charlotte Zwerin’s documentary portrait, Thelonious Monk: Straight, No Chaser (1988), which catches him in his element, friendly, honest, and gentle, with a brooding shyness when seen alongside personal friends and other jazz artists. But those friends are missing here as he’s subtly demeaned and denigrated by an imperceptive TV crew, where it’s a shock how much he was disrespected, offering no window into his artistic vision, and no background whatsoever other than Renaud’s repeated attempts to fill in his own personal narrative, much of which is filmed after Monk has left, creating an eerie impression of just how thoroughly manipulative the media can be. Instead Monk is left alone in this onslaught of casual disregard, peppered with absurdly meaningless questions, where his discomfort is etched all over his face, sweat constantly dripping under the lights, where his only refuge is quietly tuning them out while playing the piano. The editing scheme reveals just how chaotic this experience must have been for him, as there are repeated stops, asking the very same question all over again, sometimes in French, each time expecting a different answer more to their liking, leading to lengthy periods where he is made to sit and wait while they sort things out in French, becoming a pointless exercise in futility. Even when he offers extended, contemplative answers, they incredulously cut off what he actually says, with Renaud claiming “it’s not nice” to mention the bad experiences he had when he first came to France, promoted as the star performer yet he couldn’t bring along his own musicians and had to play with people he never met before, and was paid substantially less than the other musicians. There’s a brutality to this experience, where honesty is considered far too real for television, as they continually reject what he has to say, yet he never loses his composure, even as it becomes evident that it’s absurdly impossible to say anything at all except what he can express through the piano. Henri Renaud is not a journalist, but a fellow jazz pianist who has apparently spent some time with Monk in America, even been to his home, but the awkwardness between them is blisteringly apparent, with Renaud never making any adjustments in his style, never taking the artist aside to apologize for the delays or offer any degree of warmth or comfort, never asking how he feels, instead he blazes through each take with the same degree of callousness, turning the spotlight on himself, showing no regard to Monk whatsoever, an example of the formulaic struggles artists face when attempting to expand their audience. The apt title mirrors the disordered interview style, yet also may be a reference to turning back the clock, suggesting conditions for minorities haven’t really changed in the last half century.
To many whites viewing this film, they will see nothing out of the ordinary, wondering what all the fuss is about, likely seeing no signs of racism, but the condescending and paternalistic treatment of such a renowned jazz artist is simply astounding, showing no deference to his mood or what he has to say, as he is the star of the show, yet he is not treated like a star, where the studio’s suppression of his voice, never allowing him to express himself in his own words, and the demeaning, stereotypical treatment of such a jazz legend is shameful and deplorable. Other than getting up to leave, Monk never loses his cool, remaining calm throughout the entire ordeal, occasionally questioning whether it’s actually worth it with the constant interruptions, thinking they’d make better use of their time going out for dinner, as this pretend version of “relaxed” is exhaustive, certainly taking its toll, leaving the artist fatigued after ten years of touring, with Monk making only rare public appearances after this. Much of this is told in extreme close-ups, becoming a photo essay of the expressions on his face, rarely capturing this degree of intimacy with such a legendary artist, yet the distance between them is inescapable, with Renaud wanting to show admiration, yet the inept nature of his questions shows an innate insensitivity, while his aloof demeanor suggests a total stranger, offering no personal or musical insight, no hint of the artist’s sensitivity, where they may as well be on distant planets. If truth be told, Monk was a misunderstood artist his entire career, with his angular, often dissonant, and percussive style of play, where it took him more than a decade to be recognized as one of the greats, yet this reputation for “difficulty” followed him his entire lifetime. Surely Renaud is aware of this, as he was a musical consultant for Bertrand Tavernier ‘s film AROUND MIDNIGHT (1986), based on Monk’s most famous composition, yet he bulldozes through this material without ever paying honor and respect to the man himself, where there is an abyss between them. It’s not Renaud who will be playing at the Salle Pleyel, it is Monk, the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington, and a supreme artist at the height of his career, yet we never get this impression during the interview. Instead it is beset with clumsy technical difficulties, which the director amplifies with an ungainly editing structure using outtakes, accentuating silences, deleting sound altogether, highlighting the repetitive technical glitches, where he’s forced to do yet another take, making this uncomfortable to watch, as viewers really want a taste of Monk, and they get it in beautifully extended passages of I Should Care, Thelonious, Crepuscule With Nellie, Ugly Beauty, Don’t Blame Me, Reflections, Epistrophy, Monk’s Mood, Round Midnight, Meet Me In Dreamland, Coming on the Hudson, and Nice Work If You Can Get It, but they also get the infuriating confusion associated with the so-called interview that goes awry. A companion piece to Terence Dixon’s Meeting the Man: James Baldwin in Paris (1970), where a clearly defiant James Baldwin was angrily resistant to the direction the naïve white filmmaker was taking him, yet to his credit, Gomis edits the film in the manner of Monk’s playing, filled with the physicality, abrupt changes of tempo, and harmonic dissonances that define his unique style, never trying to appease listeners, instead shattering boundaries. Not an easy watch, but one that opens our eyes to how easily history is eradicated at the expense of the truth.
