Like much of the jazz that soundtracks it, Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat doesn’t hold your hand. From the start, the film unleashes a frenetic, almost overwhelming, visual language. It’s a visual language that, along with the phenomenal titular soundtrack, makes the two and a half hour documentary riveting from start to finish. Archival snippets of musicians accompanied by text informing us of the musicians’ names and song titles blast on the screen to introduce the many iconic jazz tracks of the soundtrack. White, thick, block lettered text against black screens offers information, quotes, and statistics from primary and secondary sources, with attributions for quotes in the top left and source citations nestled under the relevant text. Footage from political speeches, television interviews, previously classified…
