Available to rent for $8
December 4 - Jan 8
Directed by Melissa Haizlip & Sam Pollard
2018, USA, 104 min
This title is available to rent via Cinematheque at Home for $8.00. This is not only an opportunity for our patrons to see new cinema, but is an important way that they can continue to support independent film during this pandemic with 50% of all sales supporting our theatre.
From 1968 to 1973, the public television variety show SOUL!, guided by the enigmatic producer and host Ellis Haizlip, offered an unfiltered, uncompromising celebration of Black literature, poetry, music, and politics—voices that had few other options for national exposure, and, as a result, found the program an improbable place to call home. The series was among the first to provide expanded images of African Americans on television, shifting the gaze from inner-city poverty and violence to the vibrancy of the Black Arts Movement. With participants’ recollections and a bevy of great archival clips, Mr. SOUL! captures a critical moment in culture whose impact continues to resonate.
Reviews
Ellis Haizlip, who was black and gay, made the show the premier national showcase for Black artists (such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Carmen de Lavallade), activists including Kathleen Cleaver and Louis Farrakhan), and writers (James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni, among others) who were rarely on other TV programs. “Mr. Soul!” An enthralling and illuminating documentary about Haizlip and the show’s place in history.
- Richard Brody, The New Yorker
A complete and utter love affair with your blackness.” That’s how one of the interviewees in this incredibly enjoyable documentary describes the tenor of Soul! a U.S. public television arts and chat show that ran from 1968 to 1973. Mr. Soul!, as the title indicates, is not just about the show, but about the visionary that created it and, a little reluctantly, hosted it, Ellis Haizlip.
- Glenn Kenny, RogerEbert.com
