Jazz and blues singer Nina Simone in concert at the Olympia music hall in Paris on Oct. 22, 1991
BERTRAND GUAY/AFP/Getty Images
John Malveaux of
writes:
Nina Simone left the United States after assasination of MLK Jr. A new
film about the great pianist, songwriter, and activist screened at
Sundance http://www.theroot.com/articles/culture/2015/01/what_happened_miss_simone_documentary_opens_sundance_film_festival.html
Thanks
John
A new documentary about the singer’s life, with never-before-seen interviews and clips, opened the Sundance Film Festival.
What Happened, Miss Simone? takes
an unflinching look at the sometimes troubled life and complex legacy
of the singer, pianist and civil rights activist. At one point in her
career, Nina Simone was a celebrated performer playing Carnegie Hall,
but fast-forward, and she’s singing in dive bars in Paris for a couple
of hundred dollars a night. What happened along the way is what the film
does a masterful job of portraying.
The title What Happened, Miss Simone? comes from Maya
Angelou’s poem “The Singer Will Not Sing.” Director Liz Garbus does a
great job engaging the audience and bringing Simone to life. Garbus, who
is white, has tackled black subjects before, including directing the
film The Execution of Wanda Jean. With the controversy surrounding the Nina Simone biopic
starring Zoe Saldana, it is important to note that this documentary
from Netflix shows the real Nina Simone, not a whitewashed version.
Through the use of rare archival footage and never-before-released
recordings, Garbus lets Simone tell her own story in her own words.
Before we even get to the opening credits, we see a long clip of Simone
performing at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1976 as part of her
comeback. Some may wish there had been more editing, but because the
filmmaker wants her audience to know the real Simone, she lets it play
on for so long that you can see the singer’s mood and facial expressions
change significantly. That in itself tells an important story about how
she sees herself at the time. Simone’s life was so complex that it
seems Garbus had no choice but to get into that detail. While some might
have wished she had sped things up, a complicated subject deserves this
treatment.
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