Joan Baez I Am a Noise

Whether or not you’ve ever been partial to Baez’s image as the sainted Madonna of the 1960s folk and protest movements, the movie is worth a look as a raw and intimate portrait of debilitating vulnerability.

But it’s the last half-hour’s revelation of the repressed emotions and memories uncovered in Baez’s midlife therapy sessions, accompanied by the voice and written correspondence of her late father, Albert, that will stick with you most...

The folk singer and counterculture veteran Joan Baez is the subject of this intimate and painful documentary, which brings us to the brink of a terribly traumatic revelation that it can’t quite bear to spell out.

Revealing her traumas of heartbreak, estrangement and physical abuse, the feature paints a portrait of an artist who has an electric connection with her audience but struggles with interpersonal trust and intimacy.

The impression that comes through is that the filmmakers were too in awe of Baez to press her — or to seek alternate opinions — and so we’re left with a sense of not getting the whole truth.

A coherent, cohesive, and sometimes jarringly frank portrait.

Baez is a class act, and so is this film.

Fascinating in its content, disappointing in its execution. [Full review in Spanish]

I Am a Noise sheds relatively little light on Baez’s artistic and social development, and what light it sheds on her inner life seems distorted. It is even less illuminating in regard to the period in which the singer came to prominence, the early 1960s.

Ultimately this is documentary filmmaking as personal journey, a life story told with full visual immersion for the viewer.