BEST NINA SIMONE BIOGRAPHY MOVIE

Ironically, вЂњFour WomenвЂќ was charged with being insulting to black women and was banned on a couple of radio stations in New York and Philadelphia soon after the recording was released, in 1966. None of the women in SimoneвЂ™s most personal and searing song escape the damage and degradation accorded to their race. The filmвЂ™s director, Cynthia Mort, has been stalwart in her defense of SaldanaвЂ™s rightness for the role, citing not only the obvious relevance of acting skills but SimoneвЂ™s inclusion of a range of colors among her own вЂњFour WomenвЂќ-which is a fair point.

BEST NINA SIMONE BIOGRAPHY MOVIE

Is it possible to separate SimoneвЂ™s physical characteristics, and what they cost her in this country, from the woman she became? Can she be played by an actress with less distinctively African features, or a lighter skin tone? Should she be played by such an actress? The casting of Zoe Saldana, a movie star of Dominican descent and a light-skinned beauty along European lines, has caused these questions-rarely phrased as questions-to dog the production of вЂњNina,вЂќ from the moment SaldanaвЂ™s casting was announced to the completed filmвЂ™s dГ©but, at Cannes, in May, at a screening confined to possible distributors. The issue is color, and what it meant to Simone to be not only categorically African-American but specifically African in her features and her very dark skin. вЂ™Cause my life has been rough.вЂќ (One has to wonder what the Dutch made of killing that вЂњmother.вЂќ) If SimoneвЂ™s song suggests a history of black women in America, it is also a history of long-suppressed and finally uncontainable anger.ДЄ lot of black women have been openly angry these days over a new movie about SimoneвЂ™s life, and it hasnвЂ™t even been released. вЂњMy skin is brown,вЂќ she growled ferociously, вЂњmy manner is tough. And then Simone hit them with the last and most resolutely up to date of the women, improbably named Peaches. Aunt Sarah is old, and her strong back has allowed her only вЂњto take the pain inflicted again and again.вЂќ SephroniaвЂ™s yellow skin and long hair are the result of her rich white father having raped her mother-вЂњBetween two worlds I do belongвЂќ-and Sweet Thing, a prostitute, has tan skin and a smiling bravado that seduced at least some of the eager Dutch listeners into the mistake of smiling, too. Sometimes Simone coolly chants the first three womenвЂ™s parts-the effect is of resigned weariness-and at other times, as on this particular night, she gives each woman an individual, sharply dramatized voice. вЂњAnd one of the womenвЂ™s hair,вЂќ she instructed, brushing her hand lightly across her own woolly Afro, вЂњis like mine.вЂќ Every performance of вЂњFour WomenвЂќ caught on film (as here) or disk is different.

вЂњMy skin is black,вЂќ the first womanвЂ™s story begins, вЂњmy arms are long.вЂќ And, to a slow and steady beat, вЂњmy hair is woolly, my back is strong.вЂќ Singing in a club in Holland, in 1965, Nina Simone introduced a song she had written about what she called вЂњfour Negro womenвЂќ to a young, homogeneously white, and transfixed crowd.

Best nina simone biography