“How would you define Black genius?” So comes the question from Questlove at the top of his documentary SLY LIVES!, posed to a remarkable assortment of talking heads comprising some of the music industry’s most prominent and talented Black individuals — André 3000, Chaka Khan, Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis, and many others. Within this context, the implication is clear: that Sylvester Stewart, also known as Sly Stone, the man whom this film is about, is himself a Black genius, and it’s an implication made explicit by the film’s full title, SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius). Initially, the interviewees seem to struggle to respond; by the film’s end, they’ll each have passed that struggle successfully, but it’s a question posed not only to them but also, by extension, to the viewer, one which we may look to this film to answer.
Questlove’s depiction of Sly wastes little time in attempting to provide such an answer, chronicling his rise to stardom as one ever advanced by a combination of innovation, ambition, fearlessness, and a formidable knack for songwriting and production. Through evidently exhaustive research and copious amounts of archival footage, SLY LIVES’ first act is abundant with adulating examples of Sly’s exceptional creative ability, accompanied by contemporary voiceover from the aforementioned talking heads underscoring the man’s pioneering influence. Most effectively, a couple of Sly and the Family Stone’s biggest early hits are broken down and analyzed part by part, motif by motif, affording us detailed insight into precisely how and why these songs were able to break through and establish this band as one of the foremost popular music acts of its time.
But genius? Insofar as one accepts the legitimacy of the concept of “genius”, Sly likely fits the definition, however, his contemporaries and acolytes may put its particulars. But Questlove apparently accepts the concept outright, choosing neither to interrogate its legitimacy nor expound significantly upon the observations of his interviewees. And there’d be good cause for such interrogation — “genius” is a questionable designation for any human being, assigning what may simply be exceptional aptitude in a given field a label of superiority both unattainable by the rest of us and also incomprehensible. Questlove approaches Sly’s exceptional aptitude as such — the couple of compositional analyses aside, his artistic brilliance is presented as though it were of a caliber impossible for us masses to fully understand, far less dissect. It’s a curious approach for someone as justly renowned as Questlove to take.
It’s also a frustrating approach, handicapping this documentary from the outset. With only passing insight into the details of its subject’s contributions to music, the scheme becomes clear — SLY LIVES! has been designed as a most rudimentary biodoc, albeit a fairly thorough one with considerable access. Granted, no truly thorough portrait of an artist’s career would be complete without at least touching upon each period in that career, and if that means following a familiar narrative pattern to some extent, then so be it. So SLY LIVES! must, then, chart its subject’s path from humble beginnings to glorious success, then through an ignominious downfall to eventual redemption — a predictable path, but a true one. The challenge in doing this is in finding a fresh perspective on something so predictable, and Questlove doesn’t seem to show any interest in doing so. His focus is on the story, not on its telling, so we’re treated to vibrant, firsthand accounts of key events in Sly’s life and career from those who’ve known him best, and from an impressive array of them, alongside video footage of his public appearances. It’s a vivid portrait, but a distinctly routine one.
Documentarians have turned to music biodocs for years now, often as a shot at commercial success to enhance their likelihood of securing funding for less accessible projects, but sometimes as a sign of genuine reverence for their subjects. Reverence, however, is of less value to a director than knowledgeability; in SLY LIVES!, Questlove exhibits too much of the former and too little of the latter, despite the film’s depth and breadth of coverage. After 2019’s Summer of Soul, and given his extensive musical experience, a music biodoc is clearly well within Questlove’s wheelhouse, but it’s also clearly something to which he could contribute a unique, innovative take. To create, to inspire, to envision a new kind of biodoc — there’s enormous scope here to make this film worthy of its subject’s own pioneering spirit. As it is, this is only a passive portrait of genius, and not itself a work of genius.
DIRECTOR: Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson; DISTRIBUTOR: Hulu; STREAMING: February 13; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 52 min.
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