Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise

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Director Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O’Boyle Composer Sarah Lynch Cast Joan Baez, Mimi Farina, Bob Dylan, David Harris

Docs LGBTQIA+

3.91/5

Edition 2023

Sound and Vision

113' - 2023 - Biography, Documentary, Music/Musical - Dialogue: English, English

Without Joan Baez Bob Dylan's career would've looked completely different. With this documentary, the folk singer, an icon of counterculture in the sixties and once upon a time extremely popular, gets the tribute she so rightfully deserves.

Joan Baez is eighteen when she astounds everyone and is hailed as the voice of a generation at the legendary Newport Folk Festival. Six decades later, the American singer embarks on her farewell tour. This serves as the impetus for three filmmakers to paint a portrait of Baez. Joan Baez: I Am a Noise doesn't accidentally open with the singer performing the civil rights anthem 'Oh, Freedom' during the March on Washington (from Martin Luther King's 'I Have a Dream' speech), because Baez is as much an activist as she is a singer. However, in line with the film's motto - 'everyone has three lives: a public, a private, and a secret', borrowed from Gabriel García Márquez - this film also reveals much about Baez, including the abuse she suffered in her youth. She uses the film to close unresolved chapters from her past without succumbing to negativity. An moving documentary about a resilient lady.

“An up-close, intimate and mostly frank account of a career that arched across more than 60 years of musical and political expression while countless trends came and went, this elaborate documentary navigates adroitly through the professional and the personal aspects of a very full life.” - Deadline