Great Film overall

Good start, but then it gets ruined

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

If you have Netflix streaming, you really should see this fascinating documentary!! Though I lived through the 50s and 60s, I don't remember Nina Simone (born in 1933 in North Carolina as Eunice Waymon) except in a very obscure way: an expatriated American icon of some sort. Yet, she had unbelievable talents that broke all boundaries of instrumental and vocal performing. From childhood, she was trained in classical piano and was ready to become the first Black Woman to perform in Carnegie Hall. However, due to her life circumstances, she became something else. She became someone with totally unique abilities—abilities and feelings that transcended all types of music, poetry, and social activism. Yet, she had a very tragic life that is a story in itself.I have never seen a documentary that so perfectly captures a life of a very complicated person as well as this one did!! What's equally amazing is that there were so many video clips available (from so many different venues and over so much time) to use in putting this story personal story together. How does one talk about Nina Simone and her life? How do you classify her music or performing skills? Is it classical piano—gospel—jazz—soul— folk—social activism —poetry—or what? She wrote many songs that only she could written: she was the first black American to really express, in music, what so many people could only express in words (Malcolm X, James Baldwin), plays (Lorraine Hansberry) or poetry (Langston Hughes). And--as a black WOMAN--she expressed the anger that black men could not hope to at the time as in "Mississippi Goddam."Her songs are also about freedom as well as her search to find her black identity as in "To be Young Gifted and Black" (inspired by Loranie Hansberry's play).I'm convinced that the only way—or at least the best way--to BEGIN to understand Nina Simone is through this great documentary that follows her life from her childhood to death in the south of France!! Both her daughter and her former husband are narrators of the documentary, which gives us even more insight into her struggles.

Two of the 2015 Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature dealt with artists (specifically singers) who were ultimately undone by their self-destructive tendencies. "Amy" told the sad story of Amy Winehouse, whose struggles with addiction and eating disorders cut her life and career tragically short. "What Happened, Miss Simone?" is about Nina Simone, who used her music to fuel the anger of the civil rights movement until her flame burnt out. Both women changed the nature of their art form; both women were taken from the world much too soon.But for all the similarities, the stories of the two women are quite different. Amy Winehouse is a pathetic figure. We watch as she passively lets fame destroy her. Nina Simone, on the other hand, is full of rage, rage that vents itself through her music. If Winehouse lets strife happen to her, we get the sense that Simone brings it on herself. It's as if she can't handle the anger that a sense of injustice toward the world stokes inside her and destroys herself as a way to be rid of it.Watching Simone sing "Mississippi Goddamn" while seeing images of the Civil Rights movement, images evocative of the recent violence toward blacks perpetrated by law enforcement officials throughout the country, brought home to me how far we still need to go in our efforts toward racial equality and why the slogan "Black Lives Matter" should be heeded by all.Grade: A-

Reviewed by: Dare Devil Kid (DDK)Rating: 3.6/5 stars"What Happened, Miss Simone?" is an often electric, mostly pulsating, well-presented, heartfelt, but at times, too simplistic, unchallenging, and hurried documentary on a great singer's and enigmatic showperson's troubled and complex life. On stage Nina Simone was known for her utterly free, uninhibited musical expression, which enthralled audiences and attracted lifelong fans. But amid the violent, haunting, and senseless day-to-day tribulations of the civil rights era in 1960s America, Simone struggled to reconcile her artistic identity and ambition with her devotion to a movement. Culled from hours of autobiographical tapes and video logs, this documentary unveils the unmitigated ego of a brilliant artist and the absurdities of her life and time.The film overreaches in casting Nina Simone as a standard-bearer against racism and sexism, but, at the same time, it's filled with mesmerizing clips from throughout her performing career as well as numerous interviews of the artist and those closest to her, both through audio and on film. Director Liz Garbus is not just satisfied with recounting a biography; instead she presents to us a very painful journey through the career and motives of an ambivalent woman whose anger always exploded on stage, usually leaving a lump in the audience's throat and rapture in its eyes. Nevertheless, this is an intimate examination of the tragic life of the High Priestess of Soul. It may not answer the burning question: "What Happened, Miss Simone?", but it does tell us why the question must be asked and will be asked for a very long time.

The telling of Nina's story through the words of her family and old footage from her as well is truly moving and unsettling. I felt the closing in of the events that lead to her fame, fall, and fatality. It seems as if everyone was affected by the power of her illness which was fueled by the times. I am not sure if one accelerated the other. Growing up in the south and traveling all over the world does something to you. You become enlightened and the junk that was going on in the US over race was ludicrous and enraging. I am not sure if I could deal with that back then either. Nina was truly ahead of her time but got stuck in time due to the violence of those times. I love the way she expressed her disdain for the instrument of her fame and I also loved the attitude she had about her own voice. I grew up listening to this strange voice and at first I could not figure out if it was a man or woman until further into the album. This documentary is a timely tribute to the singer and it also allowed us to see what she was going through and why she fell off the face of the earth for a while. I look at her from a different pair of eyes now and I am grateful to know her story.