Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is a sensitive and beautifully made documentary that I recommend highly.
Joni is one of my favorite musicians. I have been listening to her on a regular basis for over 30 years. As a result, my expectations for this kind of film were high, and overall I was pleased with what I saw.
By far the most appealling part of this documentatary is the wonderful archival footage of a young Joni doing a number of her great early songs. This material simply shimmers with an almost other worldly glow. The retelling of the writing of her song Woodstock all but had me in tears, it was so moving and evocative.
The commentary by people who knew her well, such as David Crosby, Graham Nash, David Geffin, and others, is thoughtful and very enlightening. Recent footage from an interview with Joni herself is also very engaging.
Ultimately I would like to read a really long, really thorough biography that would explain all the complicated details that make up this extraordinary woman's life. There just wasn't enough room to dig into some of the most interesting transitions in her complicated life in this beautifully made, two hour long film. I still hunger for more information.
Joni is such an intelligent woman, and many of the decisions in her later life would make interesting material for a more in depth exploration. Her relationship to jazz, the development of breakthrough albums such as Hejira and Mingus, her personal thoughts on other musicians, etc. All of this would be interesting to read about in more depth.
But one needs to recoginize the limitations of the genre. You can only do so much in a documentary film. And certainly one understands why there was so much focus on her early career, given the almost transcendent power of the early archival footage. The early Joni was a being from another planet, or some parallel idealized universe, almost impossibly beautiful and talented. Given the nature of this early footage, it is easy to forget that she became more interesting as she grew older.
Overally, this is excellent work, a must see for any one who really loves Joni's work and wants to know more about her.
(If one gives every film that one really likes 5 stars, then how can you highlight those truly stellar films that all but change our lives. This is a great film, but I can only bring myself to give it 4 stars. It's very good, but it's not a Bergman or Fellini film.)
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DVD CHAPTERS Childhood/Beginnings All I Want * Urge for Going * Little Green * Both Sides Now Night in the City * I Had a KingGreenwich Village/Laurel Canyon (The 60's) Cactus * Circle Game * Chelsea Morning * Ladies of the Canyon Just Like Me * Positively 4th Street (Bob Dylan)First Record/Carnegie Hall/Woodstock Marcie * Conversation * Morning Morgantown * WoodstockRomance with Graham Nash/Creative Process My Old Man * The Agreement * California * Our House (Graham Nash) Get Together (Graham Nash)Blue/Retreat/Transformation Blue * A Case For You * For Free * River * For the Roses I'm a Radio * Raised on Robbery * Same SituationNew Musical Languages/Painting Amelia * Hejira * Coyote * Cotton Avenue * Chair in the Sky Dry Cleaner from Des Moines * Goodbye Pork Pie HatMarriage and Divorce/Social Commentary/Honors Wild Things Run Fast * Underneath the Streetlight * Come in From the Cold Dog Eat Dog * Sex Kills * Taming the TigerFull Circle Stay in Touch * Both Sides Now
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