Questlove’s Summer of Soul is an engaging, well-cut documentary about a series of Harlem Cultural Festival concerts held in Marcus Garvey Park during the mid to late summer of 1969. It’s not my idea of a thematically unified, shoot-and-assemble “documentary” as much as a savoring of found footage — footage that sat in a cellar for decades, and was finally restored and cut just right and punctuated with talking heads.
I love the performances — Stevie Wonder, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Mahalia Jackson, Sly and the Family Stone, Chambers Brothers). You can feel the heat and humidity and smell the beer and cigarette smoke. It’s a living, breathing cultural document. A sampling of the mood and politics of ’69. An atmospheric high.
But let’s not kid ourselves — Summer of Soul has been winning Best Documentary awards left and right because critics and industry types want to vote for the right thing. Because it’s not really a doc as much as great-looking found footage plus commentary. I wouldn’t say the award-givers are afraid not to honor a half-century-old celebration of black culture, but they know Summer of Soul is the easiest choice to make from a political perspective, and that they’ll all earn virtue points. So there it is.