ReMastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke

Re-Mastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke (2019)
Director: Kelly Duane

Synopsis: Archival footage and a range of talking heads explore the life and death of US singer and activist, Sam Cooke, in 1964.

Review: For such a relatively short running time, Re-Mastered: The Two Killings of Sam Cooke does an exemplary job of exploring the dual thesis that its title alludes to. The ‘two killings’ refers to not only Cooke’s literal death which was shrouded in controversy, but also the abrupt ending of such a promising and distinctive musical career. Thus, although the focus may nominally be the events leading to Cooke’s death at the Hacienda Motel on the night of December 11th, 1964, director Kelly Duane is also able to offer a whistlestop tour of Cooke’s genesis as a musical artist too. Particularly informative is the focus on Cooke’s southern roots and start in gospel music, and having recently seen John Sayles’ underrated paean to the black music scene in early ’50s Alabama, Honeydripper, Cooke’s disassociation from the legacy of Jim Crow in the South (his father moved the family to Chicago in the ’30s) is offset by his desire to challenge that culture when a more famous musician by purposely picking southern venues on his touring around the country.

This links the music to Cooke’s developing political conscience. He refused to play a segregated concert in Memphis in 1961, and he became friends with known critics of American race relations, Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali (who changed his name from Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali in the same year that Cooke died). That Cooke’s death occurred in such murky and squalid circumstances – he was shot in alleged self-defence by the motel manager after he supposedly forced his way into her office on the hunt for a girl he’d picked up that evening (who was later revealed to be a prostitute) – has led to theories connecting Cooke’s increasing status as a critic of the state to his demise. The tragedy, that this documentary crystallises so well, is that there was no concrete evidence to contradict the hotel manager’s testimony, but also that this astounding musical talent should be snubbed out so needlessly and in such an unceremonious manner. (May 2020)