Nina Simone, the Jazz
singer, songwriter, pianist, civil rights activist, and High Priestess of Soul
is about to be honored in a biopic staring Zoe Saldana. Not everyone is happy
about it.
The biopic is
unauthorized by Simone’s estate and is heavily criticized by the singer’s
daughter Lisa Celeste Stroud, who goes by the stage name, Simone, for biographical
and casting reasons. The choice to cast Saldana has caused the most controversy
around the film because of Saldana’s lack of resemblance to Simone, which is
significant because the singer was discriminated against and told she would not
be successful because of her appearance. According
to the singer’s daughter “As a child, my mother was told her nose was too
big and she was too dark.” Saldana does not share those physical attributes,
thus she would not illustrate the aesthetic that Simone was prejudiced against
for, and Stroud would
prefer “women with beautiful, luscious lips and wide noses and who know
their craft” to portray her mother accurately.
More criticism of the
film arose around the portrayal of a love plot between Nina Simone and her
manager, Clifton Henderson, in the film. According to Stroud, “Clifton
Henderson was gay. He was not attracted to women. So, the truth is…Nina Simone
and Clifton Henderson NEVER had a relationship other than a business one.”
Further criticism of Simone’s dark side has arisen over the concern that it
will be either glossed over as a mere lapse in judgment or as an incriminating
part of Simone’s character. Either way, it could oversimplify what Stroud
doesn’t want compressed: that “the whole arc of her life which is inspirational,
educational, entertaining and downright shocking at times is what needs to be
told THE RIGHT WAY.”
The controversy over Nina
Simone’s upcoming biopic illuminates more than the importance of biographic
accuracy and the casting of lead roles: it also highlights the importance of
not wrapping up a person’s life in a pretty little bow within the biopic genre.
As Landon Palmer writes on the limitations
of biopics, “the biopic traditionally, in a strange way, positions itself
as ‘the last word’ on its subject’s life, as the final negotiation between the
public and private persona.” The biopic must negotiate between representation
and oversimplification, which is a hard balance to maintain especially for
legendary figures that tempt directors to either live up to the figure’s hype
or deconstruct the perfection of celebrity, both resulting in typifying the
real person.
Solvej
Schou writes in Entertainment Weekly, “How do you recreate or reinterpret
that, the breath of a musician’s life, their art, as a biopic, on film?” The
answer is, clearly, with difficulty.
In the case of Simone,
her biographical history is important insofar as it tells a story of race, from
the issue of her aesthetics to her rejection from the Curtis Institute for what
she believed was racism, and of musical influence, from Simone’s popularization
of “I Loves You Porgy” to her reappopriation of Bob Dylan’s “I Shall Be
Released,” to name a few landmarks. Simone’s legend is equally important to
keep in tact, perhaps best in memory instead of representation, as what she
called the “mass hypnosis” of her audience was famously commanding, consuming,
and mystical in a way unique to Simone.
What is important for
Simone’s biopic, like any other, is to not typify her life or categorize her
legacy. A biopic should represent a person’s life without glamorizing or
simplifying the biography, and it should illuminate what makes the central
figure revolutionary. Perhaps most important for the biopic, however, it that
it should maintain some of the mystery—the allure—of the legend. As Stroud
notes, “Nina Simone was a voice for her people and she spoke out HONESTLY, sang
to us FROM HER SOUL, shared her joy, pain, anger and intelligence poetically in
a style all her own.”
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