Rewind & Play

Short doc made from footage and out-takes taken when jazz pianist Thelonious Monk travelled to France to feature in a TV special dedicated to him. The film-makers here raked through this footage in order to make a film of their own and in doing so, came to the conclusion that they had discovered evidence of Monk being subjected to racist treatment from the television host.

I don't know if I am going to be in the minority here, but I have to say that I did not concur with the film-makers findings in this one. To me, the host in question was not guilty of racism but of clunky questions. Sample example - 'why do you have a piano in your kitchen?' The only really contentious moment being when Monk is asked about his last time in France and he answers that he wasn't treated too well, with the host deciding that this was too negative an answer for his arts programme. It felt more like the host was wanting to keep things light for his telly show, as opposed to wanting to supress Monk because he was black. We also witness questions being repeated over and over but again, this seemed to have far less to do with lack of respect than us seeing the mechanics used to film TV shows, with re-takes etc being the tedious order of the day. So, there just didn't seem to be any real evidence of racism here and I felt that this was a case of film-makers reaching, in order to find controversy where little existed. This is additionally borne out by the fact that the doc lasts barely over an hour and yet huge chunks of that are allocated to uncontentious material such as behind the scenes stuff and Monk playing music. As a snapshot in time, this is kind of interesting but as an expose of racist behaviour, no it really isn't.

This could have been a great documentary but it spectacularly felt short of that. The angle take by the director is full of bad faith. Spending one hour where you see a great pianist player getting a bad interview isn't racism, it's just what it is. When looking at this documentary I find the director to have a strong color filter when seeing people, if Monk or the interviewer where the same color this would still have been a painful interview as the interview team is badly prepared. That's it. I hope this empty documentary wasn't funded by peoples' taxes...

Overall you see faces, awkward questions from the media team, Monk playing or at a cafe and the director manipulating the rushes to push it's agenda. The emptiness of this documentary was a shock and the fact it has received nominations even more. This says a lot on the state of this great genre and the problems our society faces. Anyway no need to waste your time on that, better listen to Monk vinyls or watch YouTube documentaries about him, you will learn so much more.