One of the significant changes in my music listening habits since starting this blog back in December has been an increasing hunger to know more about music from the past, particularly from genres that have helped give birth to the culture of hip hop (my personal favourite, in case you hadn't guessed). I've touched on Gil Scott-Heron at FDB before, but I'll be the first to admit that I still know relatively little about a man whose legendary status endures as incontestable. So, when I was contacted by Sky Arts recently to see if I would be interested in a copy of Black Wax, a documentary film in which Scott-Heron is the key subject, I was excited at the prospect of learning more about an artist whose influence on hip hop is clearly tangible.
Originally released in 1982, Black Wax was the brainchild of director Robert Mugge, a man who over the course of almost 35 years has committed his professional career to documentaries that deal almost exclusively with music-related content. Composed of footage of live performance, direct talk to the camera and Scott-Heron's musings in between songs at his birthday concert in '82, the film is an insightful look at both American society as well as being a valuable documentation of his career around the time of his Reflections LP. I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to pose a few questions to Mugge over the internet in relation to the film and he graciously replied in such detail so as to make my ramblings on the film inconsequential: his views on the subject are far more educated and eloquent than mine could ever hope to be. With that said, let's get into it.
From Da Bricks: How did you strike up the relationship with Gil and at what point did the notion of the documentary come into being?
Robert Mugge: In 1980, I completed a film about visionary and eccentric jazz artist Sun Ra. London Film Festival Director Ken Wlaschin and BFI scholar David Meeker invited me to present Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise at their festival in November of 1981. They also shared the film with Angus Trowbridge of TCB Releasing Ltd. in Somerset, and he offered to represent it. By the time I flew over for the festival, Angus had sold the film to Channel 4 Television which was still a full year from going on the air. Angus reported that Channel 4's Commissioning Editor for Music Andy Park was a big fan of the film, so I made an appointment to meet with him at the company's temporary offices while in London for the festival. During our meeting, Andy, a wonderfully smart and animated Glaswegian, put the song 'B-Movie' on a small turntable in his cramped office. I immediately recognized the artist as Gil Scott-Heron and commented that Gil apparently lived about an hour away from me in the Washington D.C. area. Andy responded that, if someone could put together a film about Gil, he would fund the whole thing. I was then a 31-year-old 'starving artist' filmmaker with just a few films under my belt and few prospects for new ones, and no one had ever before promised to fund a whole film for me on any subject. So, after returning home, I immediately attempted to reach Gil. It took a couple of months for me to track him down, but I did finally succeed.
FDB: Looking back at the piece now, how do you reflect on the experience of making the documentary as well as its relevance in today's world climate? Do you sense a change in balance in the U.S. or are the same issues still as prevalent?
RM: 'B Movie', the song that Andy played for me in his office, also became the climax of the film. It dared to say a lot of things that many of the rest of us were thinking about America's new right-wing president, Ronald Reagan, and about the climate in the country that would allow for his election, but it did so in a truly entertaining way. I was so upset about Reagan's election myself that I actually met with a solicitor in London to inquire about the possibility of moving to the UK. Unfortunately, I learned that doing so would be much more difficult than I'd imagined.
At any rate, at that time, Gil was writing songs about many of my country's problems - from misguided politicians, to brutal police, to poverty and racism, to drug and alcohol addiction, to guns on the streets, to issues surrounding illegal immigrants, and so forth - and yes, it's scary to think about how many of those issues are just as relevant today. In fact, ALL of them are still relevant today. Moreover, just as Ronald Reagan once made Richard Nixon look like a very smart and very moderate president by comparison, President George W. Bush has made even Reagan seem like a perceptive and compassionate president (which he surely was not). Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of their demented gang have done so much to dismantle what the U.S. has always stood for that it will take a great many years even to try and put the pieces back together again. In a way, it makes one wish that Gil were still at the top of his game, commercially speaking, so that he could create anthems about all of what is now going on, from the war in Iraq, to Guantanamo Bay, to domestic spying, to massive governmental and corporate corruption. On the other hand, the damage is so great, and the pain so widespread, from here to the Middle East, that I'm not sure we could even stand to hear somebody singing about it all. For the songs of a Gil Scott-Heron or an early Bob Dylan to resonate with audiences, perhaps people first must need to believe that the problems about which they sing can still be corrected. Right at the moment, I'm not sure how many of us actually believe that anymore.
FDB: How exactly was the film put together? Were the live performances done specifically for the project or edited into other footage?
RM: We filmed Gil Scott-Heron's 'birthday concert' in his hometown of Washington, D.C. on April 1, 1982. The D.C. wax museum had recently been converted into a performance venue, appropriately called the Wax Museum Nightclub, and that's where this performance took place. Aside from the outdoor footage we shot with Gil around the city, everything in the film was shot at that nightclub. Obviously, the musical performance and extended monologue were shot on the stage during the birthday concert - actually two musical sets were presented and filmed in one evening, each of them preceded by a 'Black History' monologue. But when I first visited the club, I also learned that all of the museum's original wax figures were still being kept there in a very large storage room. So, I got permission to throw together a kind of movie set in that storage room, and then we filmed Gil's improvised interaction with the wax figures of U.S. presidents, movie stars, musicians, poets, astronauts, and so forth. At the time, short music videos were using a lot of such imagery simply for visceral effect. What I decided to do with Black Wax was to slow everything down enough to where viewers could absorb some actual ideas with all of those images, and Gil proved to be the perfect 'idea man' at the center of it all.
You might also notice that either Gil, the camera, or both were constantly moving throughout the film. My cameraman, Larry McConkey, was good friends with Garrett Brown who had invented the Steadicam, and Larry was one of the first people in the world to have regular access to one. So, I made the decision to have Larry use the Steadicam throughout the film in order to give the production a unique sense of flow. In fact, I'm pretty sure that ours was the first film ever to use Steadicam throughout an entire film in that way. It's funny the sort of things that can inspire you, even if indirectly and inadvertently. But as I was considering this notion of flow for the film, I thought about feminist author Erica Jong's then current book called Fear Of Flying, and of her concept of the 'zipless fuck' - that is, of lovemaking in which a couple is so carried away in their passion that they aren't even aware of removing each other's clothing. With that in mind, I decided to try and make a film that would suck the viewer in to such an extent that he or she would simply flow with it from beginning to end and - in a kind of inversion of traditional 'Brechtian distancing' - offer a kind of comfort level wherein progressive or even radical ideas would seem more acceptable. Of course, Gil's natural charm also contributed greatly to this effect. For instance, when Gil is walking his sweet young daughter in front of the White House, who can really see the man as threatening?
When Black Wax was first released, a few reviewers bemoaned the fact that the film did not employ the sort of raw and fast-paced style that had become the norm with political propaganda since the late 1960s. But I felt from the beginning that this warmer and more welcoming approach would be a far more insideous method of putting across left-wing ideas, and I still believe that I was correct.
FDB: There is no doubting that Scott-Heron is a highly charismatic figure. What was the experience of working with him like?
RM: Gil is one of the most brilliant and most passionate individuals I've ever met. Working with someone that charming, that committed, and that articulate, was an enormous pleasure. It saddens me that personal issues over the years have perhaps kept him from accomplishing all that he perhaps could have. But I'm extremely grateful for the wonderful work he's given us, and for the pleasure I had in collaborating with him. I also have to thank Andy Park for his vision in realizing how powerful a Gil Scott-Heron portrait could be, and for fully funding a film that never would have gotten funded in my own country at that time.
FDB: How do you view the influence that Gil has had on mainstream culture in wider terms?
RM: It's difficult for me to analyze just how much influence Gil has had. Certainly, many hip hop artists praise him as an influence, though I'd have to say that Gil's own lyrics were far more poetic, and his subjects much loftier, than are those of the average hip hop rants today (which is not to say that I don't find a lot of hip hop appealing myself). Like so many artists who made a strong initial showing and then largely disappeared from public view for decades afterwards, Gil has retained a respectable cult following for his work. But I doubt that very many younger people know that work at all. Today, more people probably know his famous lyric and song title 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' than know anything else about him or his many compositions and performances. In fact, on the American Emmy Awards broadcast earlier this week, Queen Latifah recited some scripted line to the effect that "this particular revolution will not be televised" or whatever, making no reference at all to the author of the original phrase, but assuming that everyone knew the line itself.
FDB: Of the many he has released over the years, which are your favourite Gil Scott-Heron recordings and why?
RM: I love them all, from the early collaborations with Brian Jackson such as Winter In America, to the strong series of records including Reflections that he made with his own band, to the occasional more jazz-infused efforts like Spirits that have popped up unexpectedly in the years sense. Gil is still a force to be reckoned with, and I certainly welcome any new music or writings he chooses to share with us. As I believe you'd agree, the world is a better place because an artist of his stature chose to take up residency here. Perhaps only a small percentage of the world's inhabitants are aware of Gil's past work, but I'm pleased to count myself among that happy few. I'm also happy to help you commemorate the 25th anniversary of the making of Black Wax, a film that is still among my personal favorites.
If you're interested in seeing the film in its entirety (you should be) then you have a chance to catch it on Sky Arts (channel 267) on Tuesday 16th October at 23:30 or on Thursday 18th October at 14:00. For those not fortunate enough to live in the U.K., or those without Sky Digital (me included), it is available secondhand on Amazon. I feel blessed to have had such extensive answers to my questions on the subject, so a massive thanks has to go out to Mugge for the detailed information regarding the film's conception, Scott-Heron himself and the wider social issues that the film so eloquently engages with. For committed fans and those less familiar with Gil Scott-Heron's work, Black Wax is a fascinating look at an artist who has never compromised his integrity for commercial successes: catch it if you can.
