Rewind & Play

In December 1969, Thelonious Monk, on tour in Europe, recorded an interview for French TV. Alain Gomis discovered the unedited footage, revealing a dialogue between Monk and the French pianist, Henri Renaud. Gomis brilliantly reassembles this material in the spirit of a deconstructed ‘making-of’, amplifying the tensions through timing, cuts, and sound, so that we feel some of what Monk is experiencing. The interview is charged with the power struggle between the two men, and between white Europe and Black American jazz. It is only when Monk plays that we really hear him.