There have been some unspeakably gifted people out there, who have given us so much joy through their craft, touching millions of people’s lives in the process. Nina Simone is one of them, and while sadly she’s no longer around to speak to herself, HeyUGuys were fortunate enough to speak to her daughter Lisa, at the Berlin Film Festival, where Netflix documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? was playing.
Lisa was paired with the film’s talented director, Liz Garbus (Bobby Fischer Against the World) as the pair spoke about all things Nina – with the former sharing some personal insight into the relationship with her mother and the emotional experience of watching this film back. While the latter speaks about the star and what it was about her that makes for such compelling viewing, and what drew her to Nina Simone in the first place.
I’ll start with you Lisa – your interviews in the movie provide the most candid, intimate moments – did you ever have any apprehensions about being so honest on camera?
Lisa Simone Kelly: There were a couple of areas, and Liz put me through my paces. From the day that I was born she’d walk me through everything. Certain questions she would ask, I would think, how does she know that? So there were a couple of times when I really had to sit and say to myself, am I going to talk about this or not? But if I don’t ever talk about it, when will I? If I’m going to decide to talk about this, what better platform than here. So I made a conscious decision in the middle of our interview to really be naked and to trust the process and to trust my experiences for what they were. It was cathartic on a much deeper level for me. A lot of times we think we’re okay – I walked into the interview after six days of meditation school, I’d meditated about 40 hours that week, I was ready. Then an hour and a half into it I was crying, so I realised there were still much more that lived in me that was in need of healing. So I just talked about it and Liz decided to keep some of the stuff that worked in the end product, while other stuff didn’t make it in.
Having been to the premiere last night and watched this film in a cinema with a room packed full of people – what’s that like? Hearing about your parents first meeting, or your mother’s depression – in front of that many people. It must be quite surreal and emotional?
LSK: It’s very surreal. I saw it for the first time on the big screen yesterday and when the opening credits came on my eyes just started leaking. I was like, okay, I looked around and watched all the people, and my husband, who has walked beside me for 20 years, on days I can’t hold myself up, he holds me up and keeps me going – and for him to say, honey we did it. We really did it. I’m still finding a way to explain that, and maybe I never will be able to, but I feel like a weight I didn’t know that I was carrying is no longer there. I can take a deep breath and that reaches places that have had no fresh air in a long time, if ever. I’m still here on this earth, and my parents are gone, but they live large and they live beautifully and I can now close the door ever so lightly and turn around and walk into my own future and continue to live my life and raise my children from a place of peace.
What do you think your mother would have thought of the film had she seen it?
LSK: She would have loved it. She might have said, ‘girl you could have added this or that’ but I have no doubt whatsoever that my mother is extremely happy that this has been done. I told her before she died that I had her back, and at her memorial in New York City for the public to not forget her, to play her music, to talk to your children about her, keep her alive – and now I don’t have to depend on individuals to do that any more, I can just say, ‘go to Netflix’ [Laughs]. It feels great.
Liz, since making this film, when you return now to Nina’s music, has it been enriched by this whole experience?
Liz Garbus: Oh yeah, before I started making this film I was a fan of her music, but I didn’t know the ins and outs of her life story, her classic training, her struggles with depression, motherhood and marriage and work and all of those things she was balancing – while being an activist. So for me, listening to her songs, it’s like a three dimensional experience, because I feel the history, the personnel, the art, it all comes together. I hope with the film I can bring that to her fans. It’s rich and deep as it is, but there’s even more to it.
Well it worked, because I just listened to her music on the way here and felt that way. Though it wasn’t technically one of hers, but a Dylan cover…
LSK: It’s still hers!
LG: That’s the thing about Nina, and Dylan acknowledged this too, but when did Just Like a Woman she totally turns the song around and it’s completely different. When she does covers she completely owns them.
LSK: When I was a kid I thought she wrote “Here Comes the Sun” you know. But later on I was like, I love this song, when did you write that? She was like, I didn’t write that, The Beatles did. So I listened to The Beatles, and I thought, euww! [Laughs] She could take a song and make it her own.
Often with music documentaries, they can be accused of eulogising over their subject. But this doesn’t at all – not afraid to explore the flaws to Nina’s demeanour too. How vital was it, for both of you, that this was an honest, authentic portrayal of her – warts and all?
LG: Lisa game me total creative freedom to find the story and you listen to Nina and she talked about her depression, she talked about getting pissed off at her audience, and the more anger-fuelled rage moments she had – but when you understand who she was as an activist and as a little girl, then all of those things make sense, while they’re negative you can also have great compassion for them. Never did Lisa say ‘skip over that stuff’, there was never an agenda of how this story needs to look like. Lisa just wanted it to be truthful and she allowed us to find that truth through her mother, and through her own recollections, of course.
LSK: And on their own. Without me dictating the guidelines or outlines, it was more of ‘here’s what I have.’ I remember when I first saw the final edit of the film I didn’t know what to expect. I was watching it with my daughter and it was wonderful and I wrote to Liz immediately afterwards and thanked her for taking such a complex story and weaving in and out of so many different experiences with such deftness and compassion and fearlessness. I thought, I can stand down.
LG: It was also fearless of Lisa to let it all out. I know a lot of filmmakers who work with famous people and aren’t allowed to talk about certain things, and I couldn’t do that, it would be a difficult way to work. It’s rare for a family member of a famous person to allow that freedom.
Liz, how would you compare this movie to Bobby Fischer Against the World – it’s again about a special person who took on the world…
LG: There are parallels for me. One of the things, I think being a child prodigy, there was a real similarity between those two, both mastering something at such a young age, which can often make you develop into a unique, brilliant but also sometimes anti-social , hard to connect to human being. That can be the price that child geniuses pay. Bobby was an iconic sports figure, a hero for the US during the Cold War, but paid a big personal price – because there’s a part of them, a child that never gets to develop – and Nina paid the price for that too.
Lisa, you mentioned watching this with your daughter, who is just 15. This must be a wonderful way for her to learn about who her grandmother was?
LSK: Absolutely. She was three years old when my mother died, and for her, when I decided to step in and make sure my mother’s legacy was not forgotten, throughout the years it’s all been about grandma Nina. When she was about nine she started crying, saying “I wish I’d spent more time with her, to get the chance to get to know her because I was so young”. So for me, to watch it with my daughter, was amazing. It prompted a lot of questions from her, she’s very interested in Civil Rights and African American history and who she is and where she comes from, and also the pain has been broken. Abused children can pass that abuse down because it’s all we know, but I haven’t done that, and she’s also been one of my biggest teachers, in terms of how to love unconditionally and I can see myself in my baby. I’m not the child any more, I’m the mother. I’m between the past and the future. So yeah, it was great. And she’s going to inherit this when I’m gone, so she’s watched my journey and my pain and she’s also watched my healing. It’s one thing to witness your parent be hurt and betrayed, but it’s another to watch your parent how to forgive, and accept. To rise and to shine in the midst of all of that, and to triumph over certain things, because I have instilled in her that ability to take her experiences and transcend them and learn from them as she moves forward in her life.
So finally, what’s your favourite Nina Simone song?
LG: That’s so funny – I asked Lisa that the first time I met her too. But it’s so hard to answer because there’s just to many!
LSK: Hmmm…. Four Women, Pirate Jenny, Feeling Good, Sinnerman, My Man’s Gone Now, How Long Must I Wander. My favourite album is Here Comes the Sun. Tomorrow, my list might be completed different.
What Happened, Miss Simone? is available – exclusively on Netflix – as of June 26th. You can read our four star review here.
