Netflix's first documentary is an impressive look at a jazz great
By J.A.R.B.
“WHAT happened, Miss Simone?”, Liz Garbus’s film about the life of Nina Simone, will be shown on Netflix today. It is the first documentary that the streaming service has commissioned from scratch. But with the likes of HBONow entering the market, Netflix’s attempt to maintain its competitive edge is hardly surprising.
The controversy surrounding a forthcoming Simone biopic, “Nina”, for whose title role Zoe Saldana had her skin darkened, should work in Netflix’s favour. Those seeking an insight into Simone’s life will find a story told largely by the singer herself, with archival interviews, rare concert footage and recently unearthed audio tapes woven together to map the career of an individual whose influence is felt as much today as it was then.
Though most listeners will know Simone, who topped the American charts in 1959 with Gershwin’s "I love you Porgy", for her adaptations of traditional jazz standards, she did not like being labelled a “jazz musician”. “I should have been playing Bach,” she once said. Classically trained, she considered her music, according to her daughter, to be “black classical”.
It was during the 1960s that Simone started using her music to respond to America’s racial politics. Taking control of her sets, she made them more overtly political. Describing American society as being “like a cancer”, and believing an artist should reflect the times, she wanted to “expose the sickness” within it.
She was heavily influenced by Malcolm X and the Black Power movement and spoke out in favour of violence. Footage of Simone bellowing, “Are you ready to smash white things, to burn buildings?” to a jubilant crowd was not uncommon; her sets were soon entirely politicised. But these views were not shared by a large part of the civil-rights movement, and not only did they infuriate her husband and manager, Andrew Stroud, who had controlled Simone’s career to this point, they also alienated producers too. An artist with extremist views did not sell records, but Simone cared little for her marketing appeal. Fuelled by the injustices of the time, an abusive marriage and a still undiagnosed bi-polar disorder, she became increasingly angry. In the end, producers pulled the plug, concerts were cancelled and her fractious marriage ended in divorce.
Though she eventually managed to turn her life around (helped by a Chanel advert that used one of her songs, as well as medication and the support of friends and family), Simone never truly appeared satisfied. The film is pervaded by a sense of sadness that is summed up by her poignant performance of Janis Ian’s “Stars”. This story of entertainers who “live their lives in sad cafés and music halls” feels uncomfortably close to Simone’s own. Having lost some sense of purpose as the civil-rights movement faded in the late 60s and early 70s, and believing that the need for political songs had also faded, Simone found herself back playing the same tunes that everybody knew and loved her for, but that ultimately failed to fulfil her.
Today, though, Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” seems more relevant than ever. The loss of nine lives to a racist shooting in South Carolina on June 17th served as an unnerving reminder of 1963 and the inspiration for Simone’s song, when four black school girls were killed in a bomb attack on a church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the murder of Medgar Evers, an activist shot dead in his drive by the Ku Klux Klan. Simone was successful when she conformed, and abandoned when she rebelled, but this documentary is much more than a chronicle of her life. It is an insight into the reality of stardom, the patriarchal norms of 20th-century America and, notwithstanding the violent overtones, the crucial relevance of Simone’s message today: “I tell you what freedom is to me: no fear”.
