Wattstax
Director: Mel Stuart
Year Released: 1973
Rating: 3.0
Well-intended documentary about a concert held in Los Angeles to commemorate the anniversary of the race-riots in Watts, CA and donate the proceeds to charity. Stuart stretches things a little thin by trying to cover too much ground - he's not just doing a concert film, he's also getting improv by Richard Pryor, recording conversations by African-Americans in their neighborhood and trying to explore what it means to be black in America - but his heart is in the right place. Like Monterey Pop and Woodstock, I would have liked to have seen more footage of Isaac Hayes and the Staple Singers (the concert was apparently 6 hours long so there was no shortage of music) instead of the sociopolitical commentary, but I'll take what I can get.
