Nina Simone was a classically trained piano prodigy with dreams of being the first black woman to play at Carnegie Hall. She spent a year at Julliard but was denied admission to Curtis Institute. To pay the bills she started playing at clubs and developed her jazz style and voice. She started writing songs, and with her husband Andrew Stroud as her manager, her popularity rose.
In 1963, four little girls were killed in a church bombing in Alabama and Simone channeled her anger into song. She joined the Civil Rights Movement and dedicated her life to civil rights. This decision defined and hurt her career, but did not stop her.
Nina Simone died in 2003, but that doesn't lessen the impact of her life or this documentary. Made with Simone's daughter Lisa Simone Kelly (who served as an executive producer), this film uses interviews with Simone and extended concert sequences to paint a full picture of this extraordinary performer.
Simone had a captivating stage presence that shines through the film. Excerpts from interviews (both film and radio), recordings of conversations with Stephen Cleary (who co-wrote her autobiography I Put a Spell On You), along with portions of her diary, are featured throughout to give her a voice in her own story. Director Liz Garbus also interviewed Kelly and people who knew Simone (her musicians and friends) along with archival interviews with her husband Andrew Stroud. Garbus does not shy away from exploring the difficult parts of Simone's story: abuse and mental illness.
The title comes from an article written by Maya Angelou for Redbook Magazine in 1970. This documentary is nominated for Best Documentary for the 2016 Academy Awards. That along with it's position on Netflix's instant streaming should garner it lots of attention.
What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015) 101 minutes
Director: Liz Garbus
Starring: Nina Simone (archive footage)
Lisa Simone Kelly
Al Schackman
Andrew Stroud
Gerrit de Bruin
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