It’s mostly forgotten that “The Slap,” one of the most infamous moments in the history of the Academy Awards, occurred while Chris Rock was about to present the Best Documentary Feature award to Questlove for his directorial debut, Summer of Soul. The shock of Will Smith’s outburst took away from what was a groundbreaking precedent in award season history. The Oscars rarely honor music documentaries, especially those dominated by archive footage, but Summer of Soul was more than just a collection of concert footage. Questlove, in his 35 years as a musician and journalist, contextualized a cultural event that gathered some of the world’s greatest musicians, but became a footnote due to the restricted media coverage. Summer of Soul worked because it understood the gravity of artistic genius fused with the enthusiasm of an audience witnessing history.
Summer of Soul set expectations high for Questlove’s next directorial endeavor. Although his second feature, Sly Lives!, appeared on its surface as a typical hagiography, it offered a three-dimensional perspective on Sly Stone that asked for a nuanced conversation about his life and art. Criticisms of what Stone represented to Black Americans and whether he was an ardent enough activist, while valid, shouldn’t impact how impressive he was as a connoisseur of genre. Sly Lives! acknowledged the complications involved in the fellow musicians that Stone worked with, many of whom never received the credit they deserved, while also pointing to the artists who remixed his work for completely different intentions. The willingness to consider Stone as a man, and not just an icon, necessitated the perspective of someone who has occupied the same spaces.
Questlove’s third documentary feature is Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World), and is centered on the rise to prominence of the group in the 1970s. The film is unquestionably about less divisive material; Earth, Wind & Fire are among the most universally well-liked bands of their time, and the film isn’t keen to discuss issues of drug abuse or unacknowledged past members. It’s by far Questlove’s most straightforward feature, but it's also impeccably made. In its best moments, the HBO documentary is a spiritual continuation of the self-mythologizing that made Earth, Wind & Fire a crossover sensation that popularized Afro-futurism.
Many music docs dedicate their openings to a recounting of their subject’s childhood, and this is by far the most conventional segment of Earth, Wind & Fire. Maurice White, the founder and chief songwriter for the band, is the protagonist of the film, and his death in 2016 necessitated the use of talking heads to offer sentimental details about his upbringing. Political realities are integral to everything that Questlove has ever made, but Earth, Wind & Fire is refreshing in how infrequently it’s sparked into rage. That White took an active role as a pioneer within his culture, yet didn’t let his embitterment detract from the positivity within his music, is a sentiment that the film’s committed to. There’s a case to be made that Questlove’s relaxed approach isn’t always suitable about a man with affairs, legal concerns, and a notorious temper, but Earth, Wind & Fire can be excused for being the origin story of a musical philosophy, and not just an individual artist.
Another interesting aspect of Earth, Wind & Fire is its understanding that not every band is an overnight success. Artists often proclaim that their earliest work was the most pure, and that initially dismissive responses were made by those who simply “didn’t get it.” The band members in Earth, Wind & Fire admit that they didn’t have a clear identity in their first age, and that their evolution was a trial by fire; booing crowds, empty stadiums, and competition from rival groups like Parliament caused first introspection, which itself unlocked the group’s spiritual roots. Questlove’s directorial flourishes are on display thanks to the use of some clever animation, which is used to track the metaphysical philosophy White used to craft much of Earth, Wind & Fire’s identity, including the band’s name.
There’s little pretension in the film’s depiction of the unusual cultural shift that happened in the midst of Earth, Wind & Fire’s apex, given that audiences don’t go from jeering at cosmic symphonics to cheering for kalimba sounds in 10 years without a national inflection point regarding race relations. There are some suggestions (many of which are marijuana-infused) by former Earth, Wind & Fire members that dual consciousness was accepted by audiences who felt as if they existed in multiple planes of existence, regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or class. At the same time, there’s a more obvious solution—Earth, Wind & Fire didn’t sound like anything else, and curiosity was a powerful marketing tool. Earth, Wind & Fire is able to point a direct line between its subject’s innovations and the phenomenon of Michael Jackson and Prince, both of whom were early fans of White.
Earth, Wind & Fire is still an HBO release that was never going to be as experimental as a music doc like Moonage Daydream or The Velvet Underground. There’re clips that are designed for social media snippets; Stevie Wonder citing “Shining Star” as the inspiration behind “I Wish” is the most revelatory. However, there’s only so much structure that can be used to make a film about a band that defined convention, and Earth, Wind & Fire is faithful to that playfulness.