Crime in the rhythm of jazz

Somewhere in the middle of an excellent study Civilization - How we became Americans Directed by Debrea (translated from French by Pavle Sekeruš, published by Kiša), the following can also be read: Every civilization, Ambivalence obliges, has a kind of double-entry bookkeeping, and faith in space gave America the most beautiful victories. "New frontier"(the old one expired around 1890), it allowed her to reach the moon, and the conquest of interplanetary space happily extended the conquest Far West (doing more good and less dead). Since it is possession took its place in the vastness, a will be in time, the space seeks to complement what has been acquired by adding the new, and the patina of time to deepen what is already there, fold upon fold, licking at home, lacemaker in the room, history of history, painting about painting, literature about literature - all in a figurative sense, as in Alexandrine, similar to Hellenistic culture that copied and complicated Hellenic culture.

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These, as well as many other statements from that excellent study on extremely important topics, seem to resonate with perhaps the best documentary film that has reached the big/cinema screens in our country in the last, let's say, twelve months. It is a thematic documentary, nominated for an Oscar this winter. Coup Soundtrack (Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat, 2024) by the Belgian author and multimedia artist Johan Grimonpre. This film, which was originally shown here at the Beldocs festival, and was recently briefly in the repertoire of Belgrade's DKC, problematizes the meeting of jazz and decolonization processes. A very illustrative crescendo of that meeting took place during the Cold War, when jazz musicians Abby Lincoln and Max Roach stormed into a session of the United Nations Security Council to protest the assassination of African leader Patrice Lumumba. However, it would be too simplistic to put it that way. The fusion of jazz and ideology, embodied in "high-caliber" interventions during two and a half hours of first-class documentary production, goes much deeper. Any interventionism, including the beginning in the form of the Crusades, is just one of many forms of colonialism, and in the last hundred or so years (and a little more) this applies primarily to American interventionism, but also to all military pact missions and undertakings. In a concrete example, as an echo of the earthquake that, necessarily and naturally, brought with it the process of decolonization, i.e. the abolition of colonialism in Africa (the first half and middle of the last century), Eisenhower's obsessive-compulsive episode of the hunt for Patrice Lumumba took place, officially explained as a preventive reaction to a possible Soviet penetration into African space - still rich in ores and precious metals - and then the penetration of leftist and emancipatory ideas. The very fact that the relatives of "our lithium" are mentioned there on several occasions should make this film even more interesting and relevant for us here. That would be the contextual frame for the primary film layer Coup Soundtrack, much needed in order to present as precisely as possible the ideological and ideological framework of this film, which has the potential, especially here and now, to be both a transformative and revolutionary (viewing) experience.

This layer is followed by an equally potent, effectively incorporated and widely used branch about the preparations for the performance of the very peak of African-American jazz in Africa, which was planned as a cover for what is indicated in the very title of the film - for the coup d'état and the liquidation of Patrice Lumumba as an iconic appearance of active and pragmatically set ideas in the era of post-colonial, emancipatory evolution of Africa. This is where we reach the point where we can look back on the skills of Johan Grimonpre, who in the film starts from a specific episode from real life, and then talks about the soft, and then not only soft, power of popular culture. Not infrequently, the popular culture of that period served as a kind of westernization of those places that, from the point of view of the always terrified and dismayed subjects of western civilizations, could be marked with that murderous Conradian phrase - heart of darkness. Westernization, i.e. Americanization, has been written about in our country too - admittedly with an evident misunderstanding of the essence of popular culture, accompanied by an instinctive elitist fear of this and that culture - but this film looks at that phenomenon more comprehensively: it understands popular culture as a potential tool for achieving behind-the-scenes goals. We are already at the level where the narrative (narrative) style can be presented as a kind of dramaturgical braid in which the motifs of decolonialization and the motifs of jazz as an interventionist tool are interwoven to the second and third decimal places, with the fact that we can use this "braid" to present a more intimate part of the conceptual architecture of this achievement. Namely, on the one hand, we have a wider geopolitical framework (eloquently illustrated here by Khrushchev's famous speech with his shoe banging on the lectern), and on the other, the courage and intellectual honesty that comes to us in the form of the knowledge that Johan Grimmontpre, in his own name (but not only in his own), atones with this film even a fraction of the colonialist sin of his homeland - Belgium (these are big and bloody sins, lucrative for the Belgian side, which have been festering for many years, with consequences that have left traces to this day).

It is true that modern documentary films (especially those from higher production leagues and/or from quieter production addresses) are often largely determined by the available technological and editing diversity, and even by the stunts that can be implemented in that aspect, but also beyond the pragmatic side of filmmaking. Coup Soundtrack should be praised in that dimension as well, especially because of the passionate touch of a clear and flexible idea, the abundance of superb material and the very musical essence of jazz. The entire film maintains a rhythm of meaningful and by no means vainly self-indulgent jazz syncopations that lead to something higher, something deeper. That much Coup Soundtrack can be analyzed and offered as a demonstrative example in which montage superiority overcomes the frames and limits of its dimension within the wider film picture. The film offers not only fascinating, but also dizzying examples of acrobatically skillful and varied manipulation of montage rhythm, and it could be said that, in a certain way, it follows the slippery and in its essence too libertarian thread of jazz syncopation, which every now and then collapses almost to the point of self-annihilation, only to soon resurface eager for a new infusion of freedom. In this sense, the more or less syncopated and improvisational jazz that can be heard in this film can be a broader metaphor both for the supreme reaches of documentary film in the hands of the most masterful ones - among which, without further ado, is Johan Grimmontpre - and for Africa soaked in suffering, but still vital. In the end, this film can be understood as the rise of the human spirit and this civilization, even if we reach that realization through a winding path full of detours, like jazz improvisations.

And at the end of this presentation, a factual reminder. During the final vote at the United Nations General Assembly on the independence of colonies and colonized peoples, nine countries abstained (no one voted against the adoption of that resolution): Australia, Belgium, Dominican Republic, France, Portugal, Spain, South African Union, United Kingdom and USA.