What Happened, Miss Simone?

Netflix

Musician Nina Simone was a huge presence during her reign as a music goddess during the 1960s. The woman was a million things to many people: queen of soul and blues, activist, civil rights leader, and matriarch of countless pariahs and eccentrics across the globe. She used her classical training to change the way jazz was performed. She stood tall and proclaimed she wanted to be a revolutionary in a time when it was dangerous to do so. This documentary, from established filmmaker Liz Garbus, tries to understand and reflect on the life of one of the greatest artists of the past hundred years and ask questions previously unasked until now.

 "What Happened, Miss Simone?" was one of the five nominees for Best Documentary Feature, which was won by the Asif Kapadia documentary "Amy." It's hard not to compare and contrast between this and "Amy" as both films are about women in the music industry who were standalone rebels in their own ways. While Amy Winehouse was an outlier who found success by tapping into the jazz and soul of the sixties, Simone was her direct inspiration. Simone was a woman who not only inspired African Americans to revolt against the status quo via violence, but was also the inspiration for several generations of emerging artists and musical trends. While "Amy" was entertaining and eye opening, it lacked a certain intimacy with its subject that this film accomplishes with little effort.

 Nina Simone blazes across the screen in this documentary. Not only do you get the sense that she changed the entire world, but that she had a hell of time doing it. The voice over narration from Simone (from an interview) provides a closeness and understanding to the guarded songstress that really guides much of the film. Adding in past diary entries, several interviews with her ex-husband and daughter, and found footage from her life as a performer, truly hammers home the fierce revolt of her entire persona.

The woman was too grand for her time, too boxed in by her sex and race, unable to affect the change she wanted, but always tough enough to fight for it anyway. This is a film that needed to be made, especially with the oft-disputed biopic premiering sometime this year. To truly understand the Queen Nina, you have to look into her sultry dark eyes and watch her soul dance in rhythm with her sultry song.