France / Germany 2022, 65 min, English and French, Hebrew & English subtitles
In a Parisian television studio, a genius pianist plays—but the host, director, and crew are not even listening, to say nothing of understanding. Thelonious Monk (for whom “genius” is a gross understatement) sat through many such interviews, though effectively they were conducted without him. The host always painted him as a tragically misunderstood artist, a readymade persona that had nothing to do with Monk or his art. Using recently uncovered footage, award-winning filmmaker Alain Gomis takes us behind the scenes of the interview: polite and soft-spoken, Monk waits for hours, sweats under the spotlights, answers succinctly, and smiles abashedly while the host records and rerecords dank clichés in French. Monk’s wonderful music serves as an excellent antidote to the frustration evoked by this unfortunately commonplace journalistic mistreatment.
Previous Festivals: Berlinale
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