‘The Makings of Curtis Mayfield’ Review: H.E.R.’s Debut Doc Nails the Music, but Neglects the Man

The Makings of Curtis Mayfield is a bit of a misleading title for the oblique documentary directed by the Grammy- and Oscar-winning musician H.E.R. The name, a riff on Mayfield’s honeyed 1970 ballad “The Makings of You,” implies an intimacy with the subject and promises a detailed, if not necessarily comprehensive, introduction to the radical artist.

But H.E.R.’s film, which premiered at SXSW, doesn’t really offer any of that. The musician finds her own way to capture Mayfield, one that relies heavily on conversations with filmmakers, producers and fellow musicians. The path occasionally yields a fascinating insight — like when Jimmy Jam talks about how Mayfield was one of the first Black artists to own their master recordings — but more often it can feel a little too meandering and disjointed. Mayfield the person frequently gets lost in the mélange of testimonies. 

That might be alienating for general audiences or those not familiar with Mayfield, but it’s likely catnip for his disciples and music nerds. In a music doc landscape pocked with overwrought hagiographies, The Makings of Curtis Mayfield does distinguish itself.

H.E.R. deploys Mayfield’s biography to bookend to an extended conversation about his craft and technique. The doc opens with a perfunctory overview of the artist’s early life, touching briefly on his childhood in Chicago and how the church introduced him to and shaped his musical style. His grandmother was the minister of his childhood congregation, and he sang in the youth choir as well as played any instruments he could get his hands on. Mayfield demonstrated an early precocity for music without any formal training. H.E.R. appropriately lets Mayfield tell his own story. She uses excerpted audio of Mayfield and, with editor Mari Keiko Gonzalez, smoothly pairs it with archival footage, photos and collected ephemera from Mayfield’s childhood. 

After high school, Mayfield, in his estimation, had two paths to choose from: He could enlist in the army or join a group called The Impressions. He chose the latter, and with that The Makings of Curtis Mayfield ditches biography to go deep into music history. The first song is the doo-wop group’s 1965 hit “People Get Ready,” and H.E.R. enlists Carlos Santana to talk about it. In a voiceover, the legendary guitarist meditates on the song’s spiritual lessons and general inclusivity. Santana’s reflections are followed by those of Stephen Marley, the musician and son of Bob Marley. The junior Marley speaks to H.E.R. about his father’s song “One Love,” which features an interpolated “People Get Ready,” and Mayfield’s impact on his own artistry. The doc largely adheres to this pattern of H.E.R. discussing a specific Mayfield record with a fellow artist as a way of trying to better understand his legacy. 

At times, The Makings of Curtis Mayfield resembles an episode of Song Exploder, Hrishikesh Hirway’s podcast and Netflix show in which musicians tell the story behind their records. But instead of Mayfield, who died in 1999, explaining his tracks, H.E.R. assembles an eclectic group of artists. The detailed nature of their conversations — whether talking about the Civil Rights themes that propelled Mayfield’s music or the falsetto voice that brought them to life — reminded me of Questlove’s approach to filmmaking in Sly Lives! (aka the Burden of Black Genius). In that doc, which premiered at Sundance earlier this year, Questlove speaks emphatically about the specific elements of a record that made Sly’s music enduring.

H.E.R. engages her collaborators with a similar enthusiasm and reverence. She finds a way to connect each person to Mayfield, whether that’s remarking on how Maxwell’s voice on “Pretty Wings” bears similarities to the “Superfly” crooner or talking to Dr. Dre (who, disappointingly, gets a lot of screen time) about the percussion or use of the wah-wah pedal on Superfly, which Mayfield recorded for Gordon Parks Jr.’s film of the same name. 

With so many evocative glimmers and informative nuggets within this collage of a project, it’s a shame that The Makings of Curtis Mayfield doesn’t anchor itself a little more to the man at the center. An over-reliance on biography can dull a music doc, turning it into a paint-by-numbers enterprise, but just the right amount can bolster it. More information about Mayfield’s activism (several radio stations banned The Impressions’ 1967 song “We’re a Winner” for fear it would incite riots, for example) or how the artist started his own label would have eased the jarring transition toward the end of the film, when stories about the artist’s near-death experience, marital life and children are included. These elements upend the accepted focus-on-the-work terms of the doc, reminding viewers that they may leave the film with more questions than answers.