Review: ‘Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat,’ a unique documentary where jazz and politics collide in telling the story of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba and his assassination

March 2, 2025

by Carla Hay

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat”

Directed by Johan Grimonprez

Culture Representation: The documentary film “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” features mostly archival footage of white and black people who are connected in some way to the events that led up to the 1961 assassination of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba.

Culture Clash: According to the documentary, competition for precious minerals in the newly democratic Congo led to government espionage from Belgium and the United States teaming up to plot the assassination, as several American jazz artists were used as cultural ambassadors in international trips.

Culture Audience: “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in historical documentaries about international politics.

With artful editing, the mostly archival documentary “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” tells how the independence of Congo, competition for resources, and political exploitation of American jazz stars intertwined and resulted in the 1961 assassination of Congo leader Patrice Lumumba. The movie is compelling for viewers interested in taking a unique look at a part of history that isn’t very well-known to the average person. However, at 150 minutes, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” might be too long or tedious for viewers who have no interest in this subject matter.

Directed by Johan Grimonprez, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” has its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, where it won a Special Jury Award for Cinematic Innovation in the World Documentary Competition. At the 2024 International Documentary Association Awards, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” won three prizes: Best Writing, Best Editing, and
ABC News Videosource Award. “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” was also nominated for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2025 Academy Awards.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” is told in mostly chronological order, beginning in the 1950s, by telling the story in the form of archival footage from news reports and other sources, interspersed with archival performance footage of several famous American jazz artists. The Cold War/Red Scare of communism versus capitalism is the international political culture that is most associated with the 1950s. However, another international political change was happening that had far-reaching impact: the beginning of the end of colonialism, as many countries previously owned/occupied by European nations began to gain their independence.

The African country of Congo was one of these nations when it became independent from Belgium in June 1960. Lumumba was the first prime minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then known as the Republic of the Congo. On January 16, 1961, he was assassinated near Élisabethville, Congo, by a firing squad led by Belgian mercenary Julien Gat. His assassination was part of an international competition for Congo’s many valuable natural resources, including uranium used for atomic bombs.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” states from the movie’s beginning how the U.S. was involved by opening with this caption about Dwight Eisenhower, who was president of the United States when Lumumba was the leader of Congo: “President Eisenhower expresses his wish that Congolese Premier Lumumba would fall into a river of crocodiles.” A memo dated September 19, 1966 is also shown on screen with this quote from Sir Alec Douglas-Home, who was a British foreign secretary at the time: “Regretfully, we’ve lost the techniques of old-fashioned diplomacy.”

Like pieces of a puzzle, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” shows clips that lay out the big picture of the events that culminated in Lumumba’s assassination and the February 15, 1961, storming of a U.S. Security Council meeting by about 60 protesters, including entertainers Abbey Lincoln, Max Roach and Maya Angelou. The documentary uses several excerpts from published works as headlines and captions.

There are three books as the main sources for the excerpts, with accompanying narration:

• “My Country Africa,” written by Andrée Blouin, narrated by Zap Mama, whose birth name is Marie Daulne
• “Congo Inc.,” written and narrated by In Koli Jean Bofane
• “To Katanga and Back,” written by Conor Cruise O’Brien, narrated by Patrick Cruise O’Brien

Nikita Khrushchev, who was the first secretary of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, can be heard in audio exceprts from his memoirs. Khrushchev’s condemnation of colonialism was considered one of the catalysts for the downfall of colonialism. He called colonialism “obsolete” at the 1955 Bandung conference.

Khrushchev’s 1959 visit to the Unted States to meet with Eisenhower was controversial. But according to Khrushchev’s memoirs, these two leaders had something in common in ther private conversations: They both did not want their respective nations to go to war. Khrushchev said that former U.S. Army General Eisenhower was terrified of war.

American jazz artists were used as unofficial ambassadors to go to other nations that had tense relations with the United States and “clean up” America’s image. Dizzy Gillespie was the leader of this jazz cultural campaign. Most of the documentary’s archival footage Gillespie shows him happily traveling from place to place and performing. The documentary gives only a brief mention that while Gillespie and other African American artists were advocating for democracy in other countries, in their own country, these artists were experiencing the oppression of racism, such as legal segregation and other Jim Crow laws.

The movie notes that if Dizzy Gillespie were running for president of the United States, this would be his “political cabinet”: Duke Ellington as secretary of state; Miles Davis as director of the CIA; Roach as secretary of defense; Charles Mingus as secretary of peace; Elle Fitzgerald as secretary of health; Malcolm X as attorney general; Louis Armstrong as minister of agriculture; and Thelonius Monk as roving ambassador plenipotentiary. Imaginary presidential administrations aside, jazz music (an art form originated with Americans) had an interesting dichotomy in the 1950s as being music embraced by both mainstream and those on the fringes of society.

Other people featured in archival footage are Congo mercenary Bruce Bartlett, who talks about what it was like when he first killed someone; Krishna Memon, who was an Indian amabassador to the United Nations from 1952 to 1962; Dag Hammarskjöld, who was secretary general of the United Nations from 1953 to 1961; Gaston Eyskens, prime minister of Belgium from 1958 to 1961; Donald K. Jackson, who was a Republican U.S. Congressman from 1947 to 1961; Larry Devlin, a CIA operative stationed in Congo from 1960 to 1965; Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, Congolese major general from 1961 to 1965; Colonel Frédéric Vandewalle, chief of Kantagese Police from 1961 to 1963.

One of the more bizarre anecdotes is Devlin when says in archival audio interview that the plot to assassinate Lumumba included enlisting a CIA chemist named Sidney Gottleib, who used the alias Joe from Paris, to find a way to poison Lumumba’s toothpaste. It’s also mentioned that unnamed members of the United Nations were part of the assassination conspiracy.

“Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” has exceptional editing in how it takes all of these political developments, music achievements and cultural shifts and turns it a cinematic symphony, albeit one that is tinged with a lot of tragedy and unrest. Just like its jazz music, this documentary won’t be to everyone’s liking. For those interested in the subject matter, “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” take viewers on journey with ebbs and flows, building up to a crescendo that is best desribed as a memorable knockout.

Kino Lorber released “Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat” in select U.S. cinemas on November 1, 2024. The movie was released on digital and VOD on January 7, 2025.