So much of Joan Baez’s life has been in the spotlight since she was heralded as the crystalline voice of the 1960s folk scene that there would seem to be little new ground for a documentary to cover. Her rise to international stardom as a teenager, her civil rights and anti-war activism, and her high-profile personal relationships and struggles with anxiety have all been well documented through two autobiographies, numerous books, and previous films. Yet Joan Baez I Am a Noise takes audiences somewhere completely unexpected. The new documentary from directors Karen O’Connor, Miri Navasky, and Maeve O’Boyle (making its North American premiere at South by Southwest) quite literally opens a storage vault of the artist’s life and 60-year career.
“I wanted to leave an honest legacy, because it is easy not to.” – Joan Baez
“I had no idea what they were walking into, because I’d never walked into it,” admitted Baez over a Zoom call alongside the directors. “My idea of a storage unit means like bedsteads and old chairs, so when they started looking at this stuff, I was as astounded as they were. I never kept anything. I’ve lost everything I’ve owned in my life. My parents and sisters apparently kept everything.”
“When the archive started to unfold, then the film did shift and change,” added O’Connor. “When we heard Joan’s audio tapes from the March on Washington, or the Montgomery March, or the letters home, or they’re talking about Bob Dylan, and then it all just deepened over time. We didn’t start with it at all by any stretch. It was just a kind of evolving process, and deepening trust, and letting us have access to everything, which was really quite extraordinary.”
The documentary sets that deeply personal tone at the outset, as Baez prepares for her final 2018 tour. Offstage, the songwriter works to retrieve her voice before performances, and reflects on the struggle of touring as she approaches 80, and that intimacy remains until the end as she cares for her mother in hospice at her house.
“To me, this film, the power of Joan’s story, is that I really do believe it takes you to human universal themes like aging and family and identity and memory and forgiveness,” offered O’Connor, who has been friends with Baez for decades. “Through her story, you see a woman coming to the end of something, which in itself we rarely see. Facing the end of a career, it’s a transformative time in anyone’s life, never mind when you’ve been famous for 60-plus years.
“Artistically, we wanted it to be observational, intimate, immersive,” O’Connor continued. “Everything was shot with natural light. We wanted it to be a fly on the wall, behind the scenes, and we wanted it to, because of the friendship, to have that quality all throughout. So I think for Miri and for me at the beginning, and then Joan agreed, we didn’t want it to be a conventional bio, with everything kind of presented and carefully curated, carefully controlled, and very little new.”
The exhumed audio tapes, journals, and footage from the storage unit likewise add a much more personal context to Baez’s very public life. From a young age, the pulls of her empathy, anxiety, and want for attention all swirl in a tempest of emotional tensions catalyzed by her talent. In this way, diary entries like the one from which the film takes its title stand in extreme contrast to previous documentaries like 2008’s How Sweet the Sound.
Those impulses also become recontextualized with a shocking reveal in the film’s third act, which follows Baez’s journey as she turned that empathy inward toward herself over the past few decades. For the first time, she discusses abuse from her childhood and its impact on her and her sister, Mimi. The film delves into tapes of her therapy sessions as she tries to make sense of the uncertain memories and feelings. The focus is less on the trauma, however, than Baez’s own path to understanding and healing now, at 82, and with her parents and sisters gone.
“Joan was willing and ready to delve into all of her life, the darker-hearted truths, as well as the triumphs,” said O’Connor. “Certainly it’s always tricky with famous people where there’s a kind of general narrative known, so we thought if anything, we needed – this had to be immersive, intimate, honest in a way. We knew we had a chance to make a film that was as really complicated and honest and funny and layered as the woman herself.”
“It’s another memoir,” concluded Baez. “I’ve had two already and it’s probably the last one. I guess what I say is I wanted to leave an honest legacy, because it is easy not to.”
24 Beats per Second
Joan Baez I Am a Noise
North American Premiere
Fri 10, 8:15pm, Zach Theatre
Mon 13, 5:45pm, Stateside
This article appears in March 10 • 2023.
