Wattstax is a concert film, based on the performance of the same name which was held in the summer of 1972. Held in the Los Angeles Coliseum (then home to the NFL's Rams team), the concert was the climax of what was then an annual week-long festival held in the African-American community of Watts commemorating the rebellion/riots that took place in 1965. All of the music performers involved were from the now-storied Stax label, which gave the American pop landscape such acts as Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the MGs, and the Otis Redding. A diverse selection of performers gives viewers a near-complete glimpse of the black music experience circa 1972: Gospel, blues, R&B, and funk artists all on the same bill. Promoted as "The black Woodstock", the full concert was six hours, here condensed to roughly 90 minutes.
The concert was hosted by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who speaks his now-legendary "I Am Somebody" sermon. Highlights of the show include the Staple Singers ("Respect Yourself"), The Bar-Kays ("Son of Shaft"), Johnnie Taylor ("Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone") Albert King ("I'll Play the Blues for You"), and Rufus Thomas ("The Funky Chicken"). "Shaft" composer and future "South Park" icon Isaac Hayes got to close the show, and the DVD restores his full performance (Warner Bros. Pictures controlled the copyright to the "Shaft" movie songs and refused clearance for the film, which was originally released through Columbia Pictures; the original movie footage of Hayes was rather brief, which perhaps damaged its box office run).
Interspersed between the concert footage are man-on-the-street interviews with assorted locals, who get to opine without censorship on various issues of the day. A pre-"Love Boat" Ted Lange is among them (his prematurely graying mustache lending unintentional humor to his young-guy rants). Also bookending many segments is Richard Pryor, whose similarly uncensored dialogue make some affecting points about uncomfortable subjects, from slavery to police brutality to unemployment. That he manages to find humor in the brutality of racism speaks to the genius of the late comic.
Wattstax, released in the midst of the "blaxploitation" movie trend, was a then-unheard of snapshot of the state of black America as buffered through the music of its artists. There are many establishing shots of storefronts in black neighborhoods: ramshackle churches abound, as well as other starkly blighted structures. As one resident puts it, "some things have changed for the better some for the worst a lot of things have stayed the same.." Whatever the physical costs of the civil rights movement (there is brief footage included of Dr. Martin Luther King's final speech) the emotional wounds were still fresh. "Black is beautiful" was the catchphrase of the day, and Afrocentric styles of hair and fashion were at a pre-disco peak (however the flamboyant 'players' who come to see a nightclub show anticipate the "me decade" excess that was to come). Based on footage shown, the assembly team who put together the stage in the middle of the field is mostly white; however, according to commentator Rob Bowman, Stax boss Al Bell insisted that the private security be black as well as any LAPD involved.
The concert was hosted by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who speaks his now-legendary "I Am Somebody" sermon. Highlights of the show include the Staple Singers ("Respect Yourself"), The Bar-Kays ("Son of Shaft"), Johnnie Taylor ("Jody's Got Your Girl and Gone") Albert King ("I'll Play the Blues for You"), and Rufus Thomas ("The Funky Chicken"). "Shaft" composer and future "South Park" icon Isaac Hayes got to close the show, and the DVD restores his full performance (Warner Bros. Pictures controlled the copyright to the "Shaft" movie songs and refused clearance for the film, which was originally released through Columbia Pictures; the original movie footage of Hayes was rather brief, which perhaps damaged its box office run).
Interspersed between the concert footage are man-on-the-street interviews with assorted locals, who get to opine without censorship on various issues of the day. A pre-"Love Boat" Ted Lange is among them (his prematurely graying mustache lending unintentional humor to his young-guy rants). Also bookending many segments is Richard Pryor, whose similarly uncensored dialogue make some affecting points about uncomfortable subjects, from slavery to police brutality to unemployment. That he manages to find humor in the brutality of racism speaks to the genius of the late comic.
Wattstax, released in the midst of the "blaxploitation" movie trend, was a then-unheard of snapshot of the state of black America as buffered through the music of its artists. There are many establishing shots of storefronts in black neighborhoods: ramshackle churches abound, as well as other starkly blighted structures. As one resident puts it, "some things have changed for the better some for the worst a lot of things have stayed the same.." Whatever the physical costs of the civil rights movement (there is brief footage included of Dr. Martin Luther King's final speech) the emotional wounds were still fresh. "Black is beautiful" was the catchphrase of the day, and Afrocentric styles of hair and fashion were at a pre-disco peak (however the flamboyant 'players' who come to see a nightclub show anticipate the "me decade" excess that was to come). Based on footage shown, the assembly team who put together the stage in the middle of the field is mostly white; however, according to commentator Rob Bowman, Stax boss Al Bell insisted that the private security be black as well as any LAPD involved.