WHAT HAPPENED MISS SIMONE?
Personally my most anticipated documentary this year. I was of course ecstatic when the film was given to Sheffield Doc/Fest (one of the reasons I’ve been so absent for so long), and of course I never got to see it at the Festival due to responsibilities of having to work and such. Boo.
But this is where we come to the wonders of Netflix and the best £5.99 a month I can spend. Rather late, one night last week, I finally settled down to watch WHAT HAPPENED MISS SIMONE? and I was genuinely captivated by this wonderfully flawed woman. Like many of my favourite artists, I am a bit clueless when it comes to their personal lives because I genuinely get all I need about them from their music.
That’s not to say I didn’t know the basics about Miss Simone. For instance, I knew that she was a classically trained pianist who was rejected from Julliard due to her race. I also knew from another excellent doc – 20,000 Days on Earth – that she had a bit of a drug problem (the story goes that Nick Cave’s friend, who was also a roadie or something like that) was backstage at a Nina Simone concert and found her alone in her dressing room looking angry and depressed. He’d heard tales of her volatile and difficult behaviour but was too excited to miss the opportunity to meet the High Priestess of Soul herself, so he introduced himself and asked if he could get her anything. She angrily quipped that she would like three things: a steak, a bottle of champagne and a line of coke. When he managed to procure all three items things, she became the most radiant person and in that moment his best friend.) I had an inkling of what Miss Simone was about but What Happened Miss Simone? succeeds in giving a more rounded picture of a complex, difficult, wonderful woman.
I had initial doubts about the documentary as Nina’s daughter, Simone, was heavily involved with the project. When people close to the subject are part of a project such as this, things can go in a number of directions. It can either turn into a sycophantic vanity project, where the contributor basically makes a film a feature length eulogy (I’m looking at you Altman); something confused and fractured due to conflict between the subject’s friends and family and filmmakers, forgetting the subject completely, resulting in nothingness (All By My Side); and then once in a while, a harmonious relationship between the two parties arises and something magical happens, a complete portrait of a person. What Happened Miss Simone? falls into the third kind.
With a blistering opener of a scene, we are introduced to archive footage of Nina stepping on stage to rapturous applause. Like a true tigress, she surveys her audience until the clapping stops..and then she waits some more…and more…and more. Until you can feel the palpable atmosphere switch to unease and nervous anticipation. Will she perform? A cocky audience member yells out “We’re ready!” to which Nina laughs. You can practically feel the wave of relief wash over the crowd as she begins her performance. This ladies and gentleman was the power of Nina Simone.
While the rest of the doc may not pack as much punch as the opening scene, it does well to keep up. Providing fascinating details of the songstress’ life. From her early prodigal like status as little girl trained by a white piano teacher, who watched her perform at a church recital, with plans for her to be the first black classical pianist to perform at Carnegie Hall; her rejection from Julliard that led would create an anger in her that would propel her to super-stardom but also be her undoing; her cross genre talents that made her a star; and most importantly to Nina and the documentary, the kick-start of her activism after the 1963 Klu Klux Klan bombing of a black Baptist church in Birmingham, Alabama that killed four young girls.
It was that moment in history that sent Nina on a path and produced some of her most enduring hits – Strange Fruit, Mississippi Goddam to name a few. It was here that she articulated not just a personal anger but a people’s anger at the racism and hypocrisy of the world’s most supposedly free nation, a nation happy to continue to enslave its people in hatred and still call itself the “Land of the Free”.
What elevates What Happened Miss Simone? is its focus. Not primarily on the salacious aspects of her life (her instances of drug abuse and bad behaviour are acknowledged, alongside her Bipolar disorder that was diagnosed late in her life) but more on her musical biography that marries seamlessly with to the striking images of the social struggles of that time. What is created is an illuminatingly potent portrait of a tumultuous time in American history. It’s potency comes from the articulate and sometimes brutal lyricism of Miss Simone’s music. Her voice and expression conveys an authenticity that many try to replicate but can’t quite capture. The documentary also felt more visceral because of the relevance it holds today. The fact that the words of somebody 50 years ago can be felt in the hearts of listeners today makes for a discomforting truth: that the struggle for freedom still continues.
What Happened Miss Simone? is available on Netflix, so go watch it. Right now. Then come back and read the rest of this music filled review.
AMY
My second most anticipated documentary of the year. While I don’t have a close connection to the music of Amy Winehouse, there are tunes I adore. Besides no one can deny that the woman had talent. As a Camden girl myself, I still remember the surreal nature and deep sadness too when she died. Since seeing Asif Kapadia’s previous feature – the magnificent Senna – I was excited to see what he would produce next feature. The trailer for Amy had further piqued my interest, although now I wonder if that more to do with the power of Black to Black.
My reactions to Amy were as fractured as the film felt. With a powerful beginning, similar to What Happened Miss Simone? we’re introduced to a 14 year-old Amy as she sings ‘happy birthday’ to a friend. Despite the intimate setting of teenagers fooling around it is evident this girl was born with talent. The film’s starts off as a hopeful worthy successor to Senna and bar a few quibbles in the first half (what’s with the song lyrics appearing on screen in what looks like Comic Sans ‘urban’ brother?), it seems it will be that. Here presented was the unknown/unexplored Amy, the funny, shy, cocky and warm young woman. And undeniably talented.
We learn how her songs were an intimate diary, every song sourced from an actual experience. Laden with the guilt, anger and hurt is also the humour that comes along with the madness of life. This part was a joy to see. There is also the sense of disquiet because the audience is all to aware of the tragic ending to this particular story. We might be a little be sadistic in knowing this but before getting there we’ll celebrate the talent that once was. Or that is what I thought the film would do.
My criticisms of Amy shouldn’t deter anyone from watching it but I did have a few issues with the film. Some of the criticisms I have read that have been leveled at Kapadia concern the apparent voyeuristic tabloid nature of the second half of the film. Many have griped that the film is no better in this regards than the salacious headlines and the contempt in which the media treated a woman suffering from bulimia and drug addiction. The heavy focus on this ‘evidently’ shows Kapadia has less respect for Amy than he did Senna, who too was tabloid fodder in his time and is seemingly revered in his doc.
I would say that this is unfair. I tend to believe Kapadia when he states making Amy had its own challenges to that of Senna by the fact that there is more footage and words from the man himself than Amy. He strains to point out that actual non-tabloid footage of Amy is rare and what he could get access to he uses. It also pains me that people who have made these criticisms can’t beyond the overly obvious attempt Kapadia makes to condemn the blood like lust of the tabloids had for Amy’s demise. His damning of it is done aggressively and consistently. Therein lies the problem with Amy.
It is understandable that footage and interviews were limited in Amy’s case as she notoriously wasn’t keen on giving them. And her life was and will ever be intrinsically linked with the tabloid media and the paparazzi so it’s inevitable that the still shocking footage of her constantly being hounded and ridiculed with a wanton bloodlust for her downfall would appear. However, it also seems that Kapadia is also lecturing the audience as if to point the finger at us too. We were also complicit in this charade, lapping up the latest headline without sympathy or respect for the woman. Now even after her death we lust for more.
While this is an interesting notion to think about, indeed some of the audience might have bought into the contempt that the media had for her and it is truly nauseating the lack of basic respect the paparazzi and industry types had for her. It highlights what is lacking about Amy. The person that was Amy is treated at best in a superficial manner and as the film progressed I got the sense that the conversation became less about the person and more about the nature of celebrity. This does the film a disservice to the subject and to the audience.
I won’t speak for anyone but myself but I came into the film like I did with What Happened to Miss Simone and Love & Mercy to discover the minds behind some of the music I love. I was genuinely fascinated by Amy Winehouse’s lyrical prowess and pleasantly surprised by her candid humour (her priceless reaction to an interviewer comparing her to Dido was a classic moment) but the film moves away from that talent and the good that Amy bought instead aggressively finger-pointing and placing blame – on her husband, on some of the people around her, the media and on us. In this simplistic view of what was a complicated person, the film stops treating Amy as a person and then instead as symbol of the sickness ravaging modern media. This notion is neither new nor isolated to Amy Winehouse. The philosophical standpoint Kapadia makes has been made many times before, the most famous occurring over 50 years ago with Marilyn Monroe.
That’s not to say that there aren’t moments in the second half that show a little more depth. A revealing piece of footage from a TV show her father made cleverly reveals the dynamic between her father Mitchell and herself. With a bit more nuance than some of the stuff preceding it, the doc hints at Mitchell’s questionable priorities concerning his daughter. It’s left to some of her steadfast friends to explicitly state Mitchell’s dodgy logic concerning his daughter’s needs (there were some very good and loyal people in Amy’s life that Kapadia gives a platform to speak passionately and hauntingly about how they tried to help her) . Kapadia is careful to not outright take a stance himself instead leaving the audience to come to their own conclusions (giving a bit of direction along the way). He also exposes the frightening correlation between Amy’s relationship with her father and that of her ex-husband Blake Fielder-Civil. These parallels create a better understanding of how a strong, intelligent young woman could fall so hard and so fast. As a documentary this elevates the wearing second half.
Amy is still a very interesting documentary. If the dynamics of the film had been reversed, where her music and lyrics took centre stage and her real-life experiences and influences had more of a supporting role, I feel it would have fully been about Amy. As it stands, it’s still a powerful piece. Although I sometimes wonder if that’s because Amy’s life and death is still so recent and raw. Would I think differently if it had been made 10 years from now? I don’t know. I like to think it’s because a genuine talent who music will endure for much longer than her short life, was taken way too soon.
Amy is still in cinemas, completing its final weeks on theatrical release. So see it as soon as you can.
THE STATION AGENT SPEAKS 