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Soul Power
From Zaire to its New York premiere
B. B. King in Soul Power
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While working on the 1995 acclaimed documentary When We Were Kings, which showcased the legendary title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in Kinshasa, Zaire, editor Jeffrey Levy-Hinte was struck by the hours of unused footage. Mainly, the footage that followed a three day concert that was held in conjunction with the boxing match. Zaire ’74, as it was dubbed, was one of the most legendary concerts in R&B music, matching some of the most talented soul performers—James Brown, B.B. King, The Spinners, Celia Cruz, and many more—in their 1970s prime with the most popular acts in Zaire at the time.
Over a decade later Levy-Hinte returned to the footage as director, most of which had been vaulted for over thirty years, to start sorting through and make a second documentary. Not highlighting the legendary fight but the legendary concert. Like most great concert documentaries, Soul Power doesn’t just concentrate on the live performances—this is no concert DVD. Instead, you see all the behind the scenes action; performers off-stage, clips from the fighters, and the trials and tribulations of pulling off such an historic concert. Easy and worthwhile comparison could be made to the documentaries of Monterey Pop festival, Woodstock, and The Rolling Stones’ Gimme Shelter. The Stones documentary, which chronicles the tragic concert they played at the Altamont Speedway resulting in the death of one fan, was shot by the legendary Maysles brothers. Albert Maysles also lensed a large portion of Soul Power keeping in tradition of the great verite style of concert films of the day.
Rejecting the idea of using new footage of people reminiscing of the musical event, Levy-Hinte has sculpted an entirely original documentary that is most certainly a time capsule of the 1970s, its music, and larger than life personalities. For example, Muhammad Ali exclaiming, “I got ants in my pants…I gotta dance” or the always eccentric Don King.
More powerful though, are moments when Ali expresses how he has “…never felt so free in my life, free from America where we’re not really free.” Giving the viewer the sense of how this event went beyond being just a boxing match and concert, but a cultural event so large it has so far taken two separate documentaries to show its impact.
Soul Power opens in NYC July 10.