WIf Samuel Beckett's character Krapp deals with his former, almost elusive self using tape recordings, the now almost 83-year-old singer Joan Baez also does the same with her life in the documentary “I Am a Noise”. She worked for decades with the directors Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle and Karen O'Connor, who accompanied her in the most intimate situations: for example with her mother, “Joan senior”, shortly before her death.
The film also features some amazing archive footage that goes back to the earliest days of the Baez family. What others painstakingly reconstruct in biopics seems to be there in real life here: you see the three daughters Pauline, Joan and Mimi as young girls traveling with their parents, surprisingly in color, Joan's first appearances as a folk singer, her happy and unhappy times Bob Dylan, her freak phase from the mid-seventies, her activism from the civil rights movement, alongside Martin Luther King in Alabama, to benefit concerts in the eighties – and finally everyday life on her long “Farewell Tour”, which she recently completed led the whole world. Backstage, she quickly irons a shirt for her son Gabe, who is over fifty, and goes out of her hotel room in Paris down to the street to dance with drummers.
Added by a magical hand
A look into a room in their own house in California then reveals that the Baez family has archived film and, above all, sound recordings of themselves over decades, including many cassettes with therapy sessions that can be heard off-camera here. The synesthetic overall impression of the film is further supplemented by the inclusion of written documents and drawings by Joan Baez, who is also extremely talented. They become moving images through a magical hand. Everything is arranged and edited so interestingly that you can't help but be amazed by this great testimony to life. And a work of art, because despite all the desire to be documentary, “I Am a Noise” is often artistically expanded, sometimes a bit flirtatious and a bit kitschy.
The music of the folk icon is necessarily neglected: the film touches on the most important things such as the roots in tradition, the performances with Dylan and the key song “Diamonds and Rust”, but it cannot replace a showcase of his work, nor is it at all his goal. Instead, he revolves around something that was already known, but only becomes clear here in all its force: Joan Baez's lifelong insecurity, her feelings of inferiority and panic attacks, the difficult relationship with her sisters – and her parents, who in the end have another one Guilt is certified, but remains very vague.
A fake memory?
With regard to Mimi, there is talk of a kiss forced on her by her father; Regarding Joan Baez, something is hinted at that sounds like abuse, but is not concrete. It also remains vague because Baez himself probably only brought up the memory of it during therapy. Her parents thought she was a “false memory,” a fiction, as is clear from the messages on the answering machine.
The final tape that would provide more detailed information about the serious allegations is missing. But it becomes clear that Joan Baez is very keen to declare what she suffered as the key to her damaged mental life, in good faith and without evidence. This seems like a legacy to the MeToo generation, as if Baez wanted to say: Just believe it!
#tape #missing
