Summer of Soul is a 2021 documentary feature directed by Amir "Questlove" Thompson.
It is a film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. The festival took place on six consecutive Sundays from June to August 1969, in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park), New York. The festival was a showcase of 1969 African-American musical talent. An event dubbed the "Black Woodstock" featured a phenomenal lineup of artists, including Stevie Wonder, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight, and many other black artists. The film dramatizes the festival, and what it meant to the African-American community. The film also places the festival in the context of the civil rights movement in 1969, and what the concerts meant to African-Americans in a time of rapid social change.
Tropes:
- Concert Film: A documentary feature about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival and the staggering murderer's row of talent that played.
- Contrast Montage: The festival was playing in July 1969 at the exact same time that Apollo 11 was landing on the moon. One sequence is a montage that shows white people, excited about the moon landing, juxtaposed with black people enjoying the concert. That is followed by some 1969 news footage in which black people at the festival express indifference at the moon landing and wonder why the money for Apollo couldn't be used for poor people back in America.note
- Drugs Are Bad: A brief segment mentions the heroin epidemic and how it was laying waste to the black community in 1969.
- Either/Or Title: The opening credits actually title the film as Summer of Soul (...or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised). The subtitle is a Shout-Out to Gil Scott-Heron's "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised".
- Funny Afro: Discussed Trope. One sequence of the film talks about fashion in 1969 and how the Afro, once considered embarrassing even in the black community, was just then starting to gain in popularity.
- Glasses Pull: The segment about the July 1969 moon landing, and how the black community was largely indifferent, features a Stock Footage clip of Walter Cronkite pulling off his glasses as CBS reported Neil Armstrong landing on the moon.
- Hero of Another Story: This festival was held at the same time as the 1969 Woodstock music festival was held in upstate New York. One talking head mentions how he tried to market the 1969 footage as "Black Woodstock" but was ignored.
- The Ken Burns Effect: Used for still photos throughout the film. The interview with Al Sharpton in which Sharpton talks about how he was a teenaged preacher is accompanied by a zoom into a photo of young Al Sharpton preaching.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: In-Universe with Stevie Wonder, who talks about how his people told him that playing in the Harlem Festival might hurt his popularity. His response: "I don't give a four-letter word."
- Narrator: Mostly averted. But Mavis Staples of The Staples Singers was presumably unwilling to appear on camera, unlike the rest of the Talking Heads, so her stories of the concert are heard only in voiceover.
- The Stinger: After all the credits roll, there's a brief epilogue of Stevie Wonder goofing around onstage.
- Stock Footage: The bulk of the documentary is old footage of the 1969 Harlem festival. There is also plenty of other stock footage, of historical moments like Robert Kennedy's assassination or the riots following Martin Luther King's assassination.
- Talking Heads: The standard documentary format. Interviewees include surviving performers from the 1969 festival, like Stevie Wonder or Gladys Knight, and other people that attended the concert.
- The Voice: Questlove is never seen onscreen but is occasionally heard questioning Talking Heads.
