Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)
Rating: 3.6/5 stars
"What Happened, Miss Simone?" is an often electric, mostly pulsating, well-presented, heartfelt, but at times, too simplistic, unchallenging, and hurried documentary on a great singer's and enigmatic showperson's troubled and complex life. On stage Nina Simone was known for her utterly free, uninhibited musical expression, which enthralled audiences and attracted lifelong fans. But amid the violent, haunting, and senseless day-to-day tribulations of the civil rights era in 1960s America, Simone struggled to reconcile her artistic identity and ambition with her devotion to a movement. Culled from hours of autobiographical tapes and video logs, this documentary unveils the unmitigated ego of a brilliant artist and the absurdities of her life and time.
The film overreaches in casting Nina Simone as a standard-bearer against racism and sexism, but, at the same time, it's filled with mesmerizing clips from throughout her performing career as well as numerous interviews of the artist and those closest to her, both through audio and on film. Director Liz Garbus is not just satisfied with recounting a biography; instead she presents to us a very painful journey through the career and motives of an ambivalent woman whose anger always exploded on stage, usually leaving a lump in the audience's throat and rapture in its eyes. Nevertheless, this is an intimate examination of the tragic life of the High Priestess of Soul. It may not answer the burning question: "What Happened, Miss Simone?", but it does tell us why the question must be asked and will be asked for a very long time.
Rating: 3.6/5 stars
"What Happened, Miss Simone?" is an often electric, mostly pulsating, well-presented, heartfelt, but at times, too simplistic, unchallenging, and hurried documentary on a great singer's and enigmatic showperson's troubled and complex life. On stage Nina Simone was known for her utterly free, uninhibited musical expression, which enthralled audiences and attracted lifelong fans. But amid the violent, haunting, and senseless day-to-day tribulations of the civil rights era in 1960s America, Simone struggled to reconcile her artistic identity and ambition with her devotion to a movement. Culled from hours of autobiographical tapes and video logs, this documentary unveils the unmitigated ego of a brilliant artist and the absurdities of her life and time.
The film overreaches in casting Nina Simone as a standard-bearer against racism and sexism, but, at the same time, it's filled with mesmerizing clips from throughout her performing career as well as numerous interviews of the artist and those closest to her, both through audio and on film. Director Liz Garbus is not just satisfied with recounting a biography; instead she presents to us a very painful journey through the career and motives of an ambivalent woman whose anger always exploded on stage, usually leaving a lump in the audience's throat and rapture in its eyes. Nevertheless, this is an intimate examination of the tragic life of the High Priestess of Soul. It may not answer the burning question: "What Happened, Miss Simone?", but it does tell us why the question must be asked and will be asked for a very long time.