#REVIEW: “JOAN BAEZ: I AM A NOISE”

Review by George Kozera for Mr. Will Wong

There is always a twinge of nostalgia when approaching a Documentary about anyone in the music industry especially to a generation where social media was only a Science Fiction fantasy. We’d have to go to an outdoor newsstand to get the latest edition of the music lover’s bible…Rolling Stone magazine…and catch up on album reviews and bios. Folk music was never a genre I gravitated towards, hence prior to watching JOAN BAEZ: I AM A NOISE, there were only three things I knew about: her political activism, her association with Bob Dylan and one of her songs “Diamonds and Rust”. By the end of this deeply personal and compelling Documentary, not only did I keenly get more insights into the three things that I knew about Baez, I was thoroughly enthralled throughout the almost two-hour running time.

Diagnosed at the age of 13 of being afflicted with severe insecurities, Baez received worldwide recognition after performing at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1959, this virtually unknown 18-year-old Singer even got a Time Magazine cover story. By 1963, she performed at the March on Washington, befriended Martin Luther King and introduced her friend Bob Dylan to the planet to sing along with her.

Many things about JOAN BAEZ: I AM A NOISE both intrigued and frustrated me. I was surprised that a Documentary about a famous Singer was fairly light with seeing and hearing her sing when taking into account her decades of performing and that portions of her international “retirement” tour at the age of 79. Whereas Baez comes across as initially brutally honest, she says just enough without going into greater details. She does share audio tapes made with her Therapist, her written letters and remarkable artwork (used quite effectively in animated sequences), she only briefly touches on past relationships with both men and woman, her brief marriage to a younger man, jailed for being a draft dodger, which produced a son (who, as an adult, was the Drummer in her final international tour), her estrangement with Bob Dylan and her family members, and her relationship with the late Steve Jobs is never mentioned. These small disappointments disappear when the Film documents her Activism and involvement with the Civil Rights Movement and subsequent anti the war in Vietnam. I enjoyed the small snippet of her at some stadium benefit concert where sings Tears of Fears’ “Shout” alongside the Neville Brothers and her singing a Baez song as Dylan would, but I am surprised that her self-penned “Diamonds and Rust” received the cinematic short shrift. That said, this is a must-see for fans and admirers of this legendary performer.

JOAN BAEZ I AM A NOISE opens October 6, 2023 in Toronto (Hot Docs Cinema) and opens October 14, 2023 in Vancouver (Vancity) and throughout the fall in other cities.