Well, I'll be damned (to paraphrase Joan Baez) if that story is not just growing bigger and bigger like some diamond that gets different colours every time we look at it from various angles. And honestly, you would be forgiven if you think that you know everything already: after all, there has been a 1986. autobiography written with Rolling Stone journalist Kurt Loder, 1993. movie with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, not one but two musicals about her life (2012."Soul Sister" and much better known 2018. "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical"), the second part of autobiography titled "My Love Story" and number of unauthorised paperback biographies that basically repeated themselves. And its not even the first documentary about her: youtube has excellent 1992. "The Girl from Nutbush" and there are several VH1 "Behind the music" variations. But it takes a Oscar awarded team to re-tell the story again, look at it from different angle and actually make it more exciting than ever before. I am seriously bowled over how Lindsay and Martin took a well-known story and somehow managed to give it a new life. This is some serious craftsmanship here.
Like millions around the world, I have "discovered" Turner in 1984. when she exploded with "What's love got to do with it". To this day I remember where I was and who was with me as we watched than immensely popular MTV and our reaction to the video clip. And how our teenage heads exploded as someone so confident and strong sashayed on the TV screen. She was older, bolder and sexier than anyone we knew. And in a way, looking back I can say it was quite a sensational to see an older woman re-entering pop music arena and wiping out the floor with all those other kids. Pop music than (even more now) was always more about new fresh faces - the veterans had their place but we actually never heard of someone who was 45 and at the top of the charts - it was unheard of than and frankly it would be today.
As Turner grew bigger and bigger, it was joy to witness her enormous success as a solo artist all over the world and it seems she really accumulated a lot of good will amongst everybody, people were genuinely excited and happy for her. Naturally I soaked in all the discography, all the books, video clips, concert recordings and interviews. Along the way I have also discovered a whole cornucopia of interesting knowledge about much older, R&B scene in 1960s where she was standing next to giants like James Brown or Wilson Pickett. It was a world she left behind but for a skinny-ass white boy like me, this was super exciting. I mean, this was not some manufactured starlet, this was someone who survived "chitlin circuit" and is now selling out football stadiums. Unbelievable.
"Tina" is collage of several different interviews recorded during various decades: you might call it her different incarnations. Today's Tina is a mellow, little lady sitting in her elegant home on the lake in Switzerland, than there is a younger Tina recorded as talking to Kurt Loder who was preparing the book and than there are 1981. audio tape from the very first interview where she explains why she left her ex husband and her voice is still raw with pain and emotions, the wounds were still too close. On top of this, you get a smorgasbord of well documented photos and sensational live performances recorded exactly at the time when the story is happening - this might be the very first time we see a documentary celebrating her as an artist and not talking about her legs or sex appeal.
Than there is a story - its fascinating to see how media became obsessed with it and always came back to it, no matter how big or successful Tina became. The ubiquitous questions and glee about confronting her with them time and time again, makes for uneasy watching - perhaps she was naive in expecting that autobiography would explain her reasons and now it actually backfired at her. Its apparent that Oprah just won't let it go and just loves to bring it up again and again, to the point that we see Tina's obvious discomfort and distaste. Perhaps this is the best thing about documentary - to face the audience with their own glee in all of this, so they might actually understand what it does to her and how she deserves to be spared from opening old wounds. We love to think about her as powerful and strong, but they actually bring her nightmares. Her husband Erwin Bach compares it to post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers feel years after they have returned from a war. And honestly people, her solo success by far overshadows and eclipses anything that came before.
Eventually the documentary goes into story with much more understanding and detail than Hollywood movie (I am actually surprised how many people claim they know everything because they have seen the movie) - when Tina earlier claimed "I would have liked the movie to be closer to the truth" many just assumed she meant that it was exaggerated, where actually movie was softened and condensed - what you see here, well documented with photos, interviews and witnesses is heartbreaking and intense, raw, brutal story not just about domestic abuse but what preceded it (both of her parents left her to grandparents and just disappeared), the treatment of women in 1960s music industry, her uphill struggle to gain a footing in business that has already written her off as too old and too black, even the way she works in a music studio where a completely silly pop fluff (already recorded by Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz) is turned into a worldwide smash hit. In fact, there is so much material that you wish this could be TV series, because there is just not enough space for everything - wisely, the directors trimmed the story to its main minimum, otherwise we could have two hours just of people celebrating her. The documentary eventually finishes as celebration of Turner and her well deserved status, we even see her enjoying life in Switzerland and between the lines there is a feeling of her wanting to be left in peace now. It was heartbreaking, it was cathartic, a genuine emotional rollercoaster and I have cried my eyes out. Will watch it again.
p.s.
I managed to write the whole essay and not mention his name even once. Good, she deserves to be praised and celebrated for herself.
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