Soundtrack to a Coup D'etat @ Film Forum
This week I’m seeing Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat at the Film Forum! I’m going to the Tuesday 7pm screening. The film is 2.5 hours long so it should get out around 9:30! Film Forum does not have assigned seating so if you want to join just let me know and we’ll meet you outside the theatre! This viewing comes at the request of my friend Janie :)
In the ‘60s, Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Nina Simone doubled as cultural ambassadors to Africa. Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat is a documentary that follows their roles as unknowing decoys in the CIA’s plot to assassinate Congo’s prime minister, exploring the politics of decolonization in jazz form. According to Alissa Wilkinson of The New York Times, Soundtrack to a Coup D’etat is “marvelous .. a furious and elliptical film, a piece of true history structured like a spiderweb and drenched in real urgency.”
Last week’s viewing of Sacrifice felt like it might be the movie to most inspire dread in the same way that Night of the Hunter is the scariest movie: it was very academic and heady and expressed itself almost like a play, and if you engage with it in that arena it certainly produces its advertised effect. But most won’t engage in that way.
I did enjoy the Film, but the most striking feeling it caused in me wasn’t one of dread. Instead, the reincarnation theme and the paternal lovingkindness displayed made me think about having a family of my own one day.