An image that seems to be encased in adoration — and will most likely to continue existing that way for the rest of eternity — is also one of the most romantic snapshots of a famous person: Louis Armstrong serenading his wife, Lucille, with his trumpet in front of the Great Pyramid and Sphinx. It’s the collage of a human legend layered on top of an ancient wonder that equates undying love to the unmoved structures of the world as centuries whiz by. It’s also a professional photoshoot during Armstrong’s tour of Africa, when he and other prominent musicians were part of the United States’ “Jazz Ambassadors” program. It was the government’s attempt at building relations with the newly independent countries of Africa and to reshape the country’s racist image.
This, of course, was silly. America, a country that represents a long history of colonialism and profiteering from Afro-slavery, was in the throes of the Civil Rights movement. The Ambassador program created an internal disparity of loyalty within the participants. Armstrong initially refused to visit the Soviet Union during the Little Rock incident (“The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell”) and resisted sharing his opinions on the Congo crisis (“I’m a musician, not a politician”).
Connecting these small but monumental soundbites to the larger historical stepping stone of the Cold War is the mission of Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat, but frankly, it sounds a bit basic to describe the documentary’s livelihood. The famous musicians featured on this side of the world are part of the currents, but do not take up the main focus. The film begins with the intervening protest at the UN Security Council meeting, led by musicians Max Roach and Abbey Lincoln, over the political assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of the Republic of the Congo. This interruption is introduced briefly before the film rewinds to the origins of the issue, where Africa becomes the center of the tug-o’-war between the US, the Soviet Union, and other countries with the endless efforts to dig their stakes in further as African countries’ independence — more votes in the UN, more autonomy in their natural resources — becomes threatening to the status quo.
Belgian artist and documentarian Johan Grimonprez, who had previously depicted the Cold War through a fictionalized Alfred Hitchcock in Double Take, shakes up the genre through the daring blend of musical narrative and academia. I’m reminded of All Light, Everywhere’s scholarly approach, but unlike the director’s spacing away from a clear statement, Soundtrack is brazen and percussive in its brain-beating sequences accompanied by loud brass. In the best way, it’s like if a PBS program was created by a person who was well adept in musicality, editing, typography, and citations (though do not come at me because they are not in the formal APA/AMA/MLA/etc style).
But the fun can only go so far. Grimonprez doesn’t shy away from delineating Belgium’s role in the assassination, starting from their original colonization of the country to their passive complicities, or to reveal America’s two-faced agencies. While I don’t doubt that there are American filmmakers who can make the same fearless call-outs, Grimonprez’s ability to extensively reach to the countries and players involved, from Malcolm X to Krishna Menon, makes Soundtrack a grander and nuanced perspective. And as an American viewer, I took this very much to the “not surprising, still disappointed” cognitive gear, especially when America abstains from voting to end colonialism at a UN assembly.
Documentaries of such worldly, detailed inclusion should be commended for completion. It’s easy to part the Cold War into the US-Soviet Union War mixed in with other wary countries (yes, there is a clip of Fidel Castro giggling in Communist with Khruschev), but Soundtrack decentralizes the Western and Eastern conflict to give power to the rise of the Afro-Asian front. It also plays as an emotional doozy, running from Dizzy Gillepsie’s short-lived run for presidency to captured videos of Congolese residents in brutal military treatment (which feels like the permissive precursor to America’s documented treatment of Southeast Asia).
More personally, Soundtrack is the perfect composition of unfolding a historical event, tying together archival footage with literature and performance for a digestible presentation of the crisis. John Coltrane’s drumming imitates the clashing doom of America’s affairs. Miriam Makeba’s wistful wails are probably the only appropriate sounds I’d want to hear against the blatant racist remarks shared by world leaders and national representatives. Organized conspiracies performed by authorities of very large power is not new information, but the audacity is nothing to sneeze at. I learned more about the Congo crisis here than any other time in my life, and it’s pretty depressing.
Does it change how I see the Armstrong picture? I’ve always been a fervent believer of “strength in spite of,” and something about the picture feels more magnetic knowing that even though Armstrong was a strong dissenter of Eisenhower’s inactions or that the Voting Rights Act have not yet passed in the country that seems to promote equality, the Armstrongs were there in an emotion that feels untouchable. I don’t know if I could believe in a better future at the moment, but I can believe in trying.
Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat
2024
dir. Johan Grimonprez
150 min.
Screens Friday, 1/10 through Tuesday, 1/14 @ Brattle Theatre
