National Film Registry adds ‘Wattstax’
When you think “Library of Congress,” you usually don’t think “funky.”
But the national research center and archive on Monday embraced pink hot pants, gospel harmonies and wah-wah chicken-scratch guitar when it added “Wattstax” to its National Film Registry.
A 1973 concert documentary showcasing such stars of the Memphis-based Stax label as Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, the Bar-kays and Rufus Thomas (who wears a legendary ensemble of pink hot pants and white go-go boots while teaching the stadium crowd to do “The Funky Chicken”), “Wattstax” was one of 25 films added to the registry Monday in what has become an annual ritual recognizing what the Library calls “America’s most influential motion pictures.”
The movies are chosen for their “cultural, historic or aesthetic importance to the nation’s film heritage,” according to the Film Registry’s mission statement.
Also chosen Monday were two other movies with Stax connections: Writerdirector-star-composer Melvin Van Peebles’ “Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song” (1971) and director John Landis’ “The Blues Brothers” (1980).
A groundbreaking work of Black independent cinema that launched what came to identified as “blaxploitation” movies, “Sweet Sweetback” featured a soundtrack performed by the then littleknown band Earth, Wind & Fire that was released on the Stax label. The soundtrack reached No. 13 on the Billboard R&B albums chart. When the movie received an audience-limiting “adults only” rating, Van Peebles turned the sanction into a sales promotion, advertising the film as being “Rated X by an All-white Jury.”
“The Blues Brothers,” meanwhile, features a number of Stax veterans and Memphis musicians as actors/band members, to augment the less-than-authentic R&B personae of stars Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who had introduced their heartfelt but inherently comedic “Blues Brothers” act on “Saturday Night Alive.” The Memphis talent includes such notables as guitarist Steve Cropper and bassist Donald “Duck”
Dunn of Booker T. & the MG’S; drummer Willie Hall; and Memphis-born Aretha Franklin.
Filmed before an audience of 112,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 1972 and conceived as a daylong benefit concert for the Watts neighborhood that would showcase the Memphis soul label, “Wattstax” provides an essential portrait of the Stax roster of talent at the height of its cultural power — Isaac Hayes, the “Black Moses,” had just become the second Black person in history to win an Academy Award — but just two years before the label would declare bankruptcy. The film was directed by Mel Stuart (”Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”), with Van Peebles handling much of the concert staging.
An exhibit recognizing “Wattstax” that repeats loops of concert footage is on permanent display at the Stax Museum of American Soul Music. Some other artists who appear in the film include Albert King, Johnnie Taylor and gospel-soul vocalist Rance Allen, who died Oct. 31 at 71.
Explaining the choice of “Wattstax,” the Library of Congress website states: “Often called the ‘Black Woodstock’ this documentary from Memphis’ Stax Records stands as far more than simply a great concert film. ‘Wattstax’ chronicles the renowned 1972 LA Memorial Coliseum concert and celebrates the Los Angeles Black community’s rebirth after the tragedy of the Watts riots a few years earlier. Richard Pryor’s knowing monologues frame and serve as a Shakespearean musing on race relations and Black American life, alongside the incisive comments from people on the Watts streets.”
Other titles selected this year for the National Film Registry include blockbuster hits (”Grease,” “Shrek,” “The Dark Knight”), slapstick shorts (1927’s “The Battle of the Century,” with Laurel and Hardy) and experimental documentaries (”With Car and Camera Around the World,” 1929).
Established in 1988, the Library of Congress has now added 800 films to its registry, which function as both a “hall of fame” and as a guarantee that the film will be preserved for posterity in the library. For the full list of this year’s selections and the entire Film Registry, visit loc.gov.