Brown and betts

The project began in 1999 when betts produced a W.C. Handy program in Denver that featured Brown as a guest. betts asked Brown if anybody had ever scripted his story. "No, you want to do it?" replied Brown in a typically rapid response. betts seized the opportunity. The first interviews were in the can that same day.

Six years is an eternity to labor on a documentary the size and scope of Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress. The endless efforts to drum up funds, collect vintage footage, imagine fresh scenes, record dialogues and performances, and ultimately create a masterpiece can exhaust a director beyond belief. betts was fortunate to have had Brown's magnetism, unflinching spirit, and sheer brilliance for inspiration Likewise, Brown's memory is blessed with betts's artistry, insight, and empathy to preserve for posterity his seminal story. The conflation of talent results in perhaps the best documentary presented this decade.

In fact, Music is My Life, Politics My Mistress ranks among the greatest documentaries ever made. Several components bolster that claim. Among musical productions, only Martin Scorsese's The Last Waltz can compete. And even the miraculous footage of The Band's last performance doesn't burrow beneath the public persona of its subjects like betts's penetrating exploration of Brown's artistry and activism. Even watching Brown pirouette between musical genres and controversial crusades like a hyper ballerina can be exhausting. While The Last Waltz honors African American culture and salutes Black musical giants, that film only glances at most aspects of the culture. The occasional guest appearance of Muddy Waters and the Staple Singers offer a glimpse of Black genius, but Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress incisively probes African-American attitudes of the 20th Century and the external forces creating them.

Brown

The film is brilliantly assembled. Flashbacks flip to recent shots within seconds. Rather than progress in chronological sequence, the footage toggles from past to present. In doing so, it assumes the timeless dimensions of its star. Brown became legendary for being unpredictable, yet aesthetically reliable. betts juggles scenes spanning decades. When the audience gets comfortable watching a young, virile Brown sauntering across the screen, a sudden dissolve ages Brown several decades. His posture slumps, but his talent and temper still flare. The film explains that in youth, mid-life, and as elder statesman, Brown deftly commanded stages, lyrics, and causes. His anger at injustices also refused to temper with age.

The film is a loaded gun of contradictions and complexity, firing off lyrics and genius. Even more dramatic is the segue between old scenes and recent shots in black and white. Brown's views were also shaded black and white. There was no waffling or compromising in his beliefs. Brown's world became molded by the segregation of Black and White Chicago where he matured into an activist. The overall effect is gorgeous and provocative.

"I wanted the film to be different," stated betts. "I wanted to show the audience that his life was complex and complicated and make it palpable." That's the only way betts could make the film because Brown's life can be summed up as complex and complicated.

From the South Side of Chicago to Broadway, Brown composed a career deep in social activism set to a jazz melody. Like jazz, Brown's social activism relied on intuitive improvisation that took his followers wherever the artist's imagination envisioned. Like jazz, the journey was complex and required the skills of a virtuoso. His fans and admirers accompanied him, often setting their own background chorus to his exploits. With Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress, betts can claim to have directed the choir.

Praises from media giants like the Chicago Tribune and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution are already vindicating betts's perseverance. When the film debuted at Chicago's Gene Siskel Film Center on Oct.14, the Tribune ran a breathless review lavishing hosannas.

"To the credit of director donnie l. betts, it's all there in the film: the artistic triumphs and the colossal commercial defeats, the stylistic innovations and the feuds with other musicians, the generosity of spirit and the inevitable personal shortcomings. The director... even plunges headlong into the greatest tragedy of Brown's life, the death of his comparable gifted son, Oscar Brown III... at age 38, in 1996, at the hands of a drunk driver."

Young Brown

There is no doubt, Music Is My Life, Politics Is My Mistress is a work of art. betts didn't envision the film to be as sprawling when he sat with Brown for those first interviews. But as their work progressed, betts realized that Brown's story begged for expansive and deep documentation.

The finished product is worth the effort. In flashbacks, song, dance, and narration, Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress documents Brown's creative and personal life. The audience is informed about his upbringing. They also learn about his twin passions--writing and activism, exactly what made Brown great—and they leap off the screen. The film also explains not only his genius, but the early flirtation with fame and subsequent heartaches.

Brown's talent surpassed that of merely a lyricist. During his heyday, Brown released several seismic albums, including Sin and Soul, on the Columbia imprint. He appeared with everyone from Miles Davis to Nancy Wilson. Cannonball Adderly and Mahalia Jackson recorded his compositions. Muhammad Ali starred in one of his plays. Epochal speeches tend to be rendered by household names. Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream" instantly comes to mind, but the dissemination of Brown's vision in either spoken word or songs has found its greatest spotlight on the stage. The productions have revolutionized drama with their subjects and topics.

Brown walked out because he felt that Columbia Records stifled his artistic vision. He dismissed the corporate Goliath for personal and racial freedom because Brown refused to be "a slave to a record company, according to betts. Brown tabled his recording career to pursue his obsessions--writing and agitating against social injustice. While Brown's pursuits garnered critical respect and kudos, his career sputtered and the spotlight dimmed. The mainstream celebrity that appeared inevitable when he signed to Columbia Records and appeared on the Today Show bypassed his later professional efforts.

When I saw a rough segment of the film almost three years ago, I observed that Brown was reminiscent of the ultimate "lion in winter". Bearded and bent over, his shivering body jerking in spasms. I am today reminded that Brown literally shivered in the shadows throughout a great portion of his career. Brown rearranged the beat and dialogue with his eccentric cadences and torn vocals. Some might observe that Brown himself was torn between pleasure and pain in his art. While he loved music, he hated injustice.

Brown then became obsessed with artistic responsibility. "The artist's responsibility is more than just [being] ... an entertainer, but [also a] social activist," explained betts. Brown became increasingly involved in scholarly pursuits as academia usurped corporate entertainment as his champion. Teaching and serving as Artist-In-Residence at Howard University, Hunter College, Malcolm X College, and the University of California-Riverside gave him the leverage to seriously explore societal ills from an artistic context.

However, Brown never regained his professional footing after the brief flurry of world-wide fame that he enjoyed during his Columbia years. An activist comparable to Dick Gregory, both men endured the back burner on which Hollywood placed them. While Harry Belafonte thrived as an activist and entertainer whose name appears in the American conscious alongside the giants of American culture, Brown became marginalized as a radical.

Brown remained carefree about his bypassed fame. "There's no bitter malice about stardom," asserted betts. "He is OK with that. He wanted people to hear the truth." And the people hear that truth loud and clear--and beautifully trumpeted in Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress. The film excited Brown. "You captured me!" Brown exclaimed to betts after viewing a rough cut before his death.

Fate again dealt Brown a rough blow. The documentary is playing around the globe, but he isn't around to enjoy the recognition. Brown's death in May of cancer wasn't expected. He'd been diagnosed only weeks before he succumbed to the disease. "He'd been doing just fine, being his usual, fine, crazy self," betts stated.

betts grieves Brown's absence from the glittery premieres of his life story, attended by the likes of Marla Gibbs and Brian and Eddie Holland of Motown's Holland-Dozier-Holland. But betts is happy that the artist lived to see the near-completion of the documentary and attend some of the pre-release screenings.

Somehow it's not difficult to imagine Brown smiling from up above even as he continues to celebrate justice and bemoan societal ills.

The timing of Music Is My Life, Politics My Mistress is the grand finale of Brown's legacy. The last denial by destiny is that he can't witness betts's spectacular triumph that reflects his life's disappointments and accomplishments. Indeed the film, and betts's hardships creating it, represents Brown's journey. There's sweeping history, stunning despondency, tragic losses, and cold rejection of his causes and his culture. But, like the film, most enduring of all is the stunning brilliance reflected in Music Is My Life, Politics Is My Mistress. Simply, stunning brilliance describes betts' gorgeous documentary.