Q&A: Soul Power

Man, James Brown was one baaaaaaaad soul brother. If anyone ever needed proof of this, look no further than Soul Power, Jeff Levy-Hinte's new documentary about the music festival that accompanied the century's most famous boxing match, the Rumble in the Jungle. In Levy-Hinte's directorial debut, the filmmaker took extra footage from When We Were Kings (which he edited) and turned it into its own film, focusing on the huge music festival Don King set up to go along with the fight. The festival was clearly an event unto itself, featuring the likes of Bill Withers, The Spinners, and of course, the aforementioned Godfather of Soul.

"Feel free to get into it," Levy-Hinte told the audience before the screening began. "If you want to sing along, or dance, go right ahead." Sure enough, some audience members followed Levy-Hinte's advice, getting their freak on, especially when JB hit the stage at the end of the film. Damn, that guy could dance! The audience loved the film, and the effusive reaction was best summed up by the first questioner, who started off: "First of all, that was awesome!" She went on to ask how Levy-Hinte came up with the idea.

"Well, I really was starting on the 99th yard line, with help from Kevin Keating, Albert Maysles, and of course the great characters in the film. I had originally thought of doing something with this footage when editing When We Were Kings, and a few years back, I decided I had to do it. The material was too valuable to gather dust in a storage closet in New Jersey. After James Brown died, I decided it had to be a feature, that I wanted it to get theatrical distribution."

When asked about the film's theme, Levy-Hinte had another interesting response. "I think a lot of the characters do a really great job of articulating the African-American experience in this country," he said. "Especially Muhammad Ali. I think he really says a lot of great stuff." When asked if he had ever been to Zaire himself, Levy-Hinte stated, "I haven't. In a sense, you don't really want to know what actually happened, you want to really be sensitive to the material itself. I think, for the film, it was actually beneficial."

Having been asked about musicians in the film who had seen it, Levy-Hinte related an amusing anecdote regarding Big Black, an African musician featured in the film. "I sent it to Big Black," he said, "and he told me, this is a cool movie. I asked him what he thought of his performance in the film. He said, well, it's all right, but you should hear what I'm doing now." Levy-Hinte paused. "He's 75 or 80!"
 

Soul Power has screenings on Friday and Saturday. Rush tickets are available.

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