For a virtuoso performer whose sublime efforts to entertain the masses are telegraphed even in the slightest nuance – the articulated micro-movements of her crying on stage, the twitching and tightening of her facial muscles changing with each passing second, her crying intensifying into a growl – Tina Turner frequently projects a surprising attitude in a new documentary about her life: reluctance.
“The first interview we did in February 2019, we sat down to do the interview and said,” How are you? How are you feeling? ‘ He said, “I don’t want to do that,” Daniel Lindsay said recently via Zoom. Lindsay is one of the directors clay, which debuts on Saturday on HBO. “I knew it wasn’t about the whole documentary, it was about the interview. I said, “Let’s start here. Let’s talk about this. ‘”
Reluctance was a reason throughout Turner’s public life after her divorce from Ike Turner, the rock and roll pioneer she says he abused her terribly for years during their marriage and musical collaboration. As Turner says clay, was initially excited to tell her story people the 1981 magazine, to permanently break the image of Ike, which he finally got rid of in 1976. The opposite happened. The story of her escape from Ike Turner to experience the greatest success of her career, ascending to the rock god in good faith in the ’80s, not only defined Turner’s public profile, but reached a status of legend in the annals of pop culture. Americans.
This story gave Lindsay and her directing partner, TJ Martin, something to chew on that other subjects in this realm might have missed. The pair are extremely selective in their projects, after winning the 2012 Oscar for Best Documentary for undefeated. (Victory made Martin the first person of color to win in that category.) “Part of the reason we were so hesitant to connect to direct the film is that this kind of film can be – I hope ours isn’t – the Marvel films of the documentary world: bigger budgets and embedded audiences.” , Lindsay explained. “I knew we would never make a traditional rock document, so to speak, in which we would just dissect her music catalog and talk about Tina as a singer.”
G / O Media may receive a commission
That doesn’t mean there’s no meaning to Turner’s historical career. Indeed, the film features archival footage of Ike and post-Ike art peaks, “River Deep, Mountain High,” Tuner’s collaboration with Phil Spector in the former camp, “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” last). Lindsay and Martin regularly use photo editing, some frantically edited, during musical moments, as if cramming as many icons on the screen as possible, while reminding you to take them all, frame by frame. But in order to make a film worth watching, they were presented with a unique challenge that Turner himself expressed during the first meeting.
“I think her exact words were, ‘It was a book, a movie and a musical. Why the hell are we going to make a documentary? Martin recalls Martin’s 1985 memoirs Me, Tina; adaptation of the 1993 film, What love has to do with her; and the latest Broadway production TINA – The musical Tina Turner. “I was like, ‘I had the same question. That’s why we’re here. To her credit, she broke the ice and created an honest space for us to be inside. In the first conversations I recognized how the trauma of her past is still beneath the surface. Always lurk around the corner. ”
The project came about as a result of the work that Simon Chinn and Jonathan Chinn did with Turner on promotional videos for the Broadway musical. Chinns introduced the idea to Turner and her music executive husband, Erwin Bach, and then asked Lindsay and Martin, with whom they worked at the Lightbox production company, if they were interested in running it.
“Once Simon approached us, seeing if we were willing to lead, our hesitation was just, first of all, are two men the right people to be Tina’s voice, to tell her the story?” Martin remembered. “And the second was that I respected Tina a lot, but we weren’t necessarily fans. The latter was probably to our advantage, because as we began to dive in and learn more about her narrative, we looked at him through the prism of the story, and it was all a fitting discovery. ”
As for how they reconciled by telling Turner’s story, while they were both men, it was ultimately Turner’s choice. “After a while, spending time with her, I think we’ve built a good relationship and we trust her, so our job is to be an empathic channel for her to filter her narrative,” Martin said. The crew, Lindsay pointed out, did not have a hard time including a sausage party, such as Diane Becker who works as a producer and Taryn Gould on the editing team.
clay it would eventually take about two and a half years to complete. The directors’ first interview with Turner on his palatine estate in Zurich took place in February 2019. They conducted two three-hour interviews over two days. “Usually, with these celebrity-based documents, there is a contract as to how long they will give you. We shouldn’t have gotten much more than that, but on Tina’s credit, once she started dipping her foot in the process, I think she got a little excited, “said Martin, who described Turner as” this healthy combination of energy. unique, extremely warm and extremely honest. ”
“If he doesn’t like your shoes, he’ll say, ‘Why are you wearing those shoes?’ “He added. “But in the most loving way, for example, ‘I think you can do better.'”
“There is humility in it,” Lindsay said. “Don’t get me wrong, she’s still a star. It’s annoying when people say that celebrities are down to earth, but I don’t know how to describe them differently. It makes you feel very comfortable. ”
They based their frame on Turner’s frequently declared fatigue about her narrative. clay, so it is a biography that refers as much to the events that happened as it is to the act of sharing them. “There’s something to explore in her story, which I finally did in this kind of meta, like, ‘What does Tina think of Tina Turner’s story? Lindsay said. “It simply came to our notice then. I also thought he said a little more about the media and how we define people as symbols and ideas. That piece of meat on the bone made us say, “This is a real movie.” ”
But if we take Turner at her word, that she essentially crawled through her story people and then to journalist Kurt Loder (who co-wrote Me, Tina) and then suffered through his release What love has to do with her (at a press conference, presented in clay through archive footage, she said she can’t stand), isn’t the same thing happening? Aren’t Lindsay and Martin guilty of putting more on Turner than the hell he spends so much on the dock?
“It’s a very strange line: are we doing the same thing? I know we feel comfortable with the way we worked with her to make sure we don’t do the same in our process with her, ”Lindsay said. “Honestly, it’s become too much to be able to articulate exactly and it’s like, well, I think it’s the strange contradiction in this film. We were very eager to show her the movie Tina and we talked even if we shouldn’t show her certain parts. Finally, she said, “No, I want to see everything.” He really liked the movie. She told us that she was right and that she felt that was the truth of her experience. But he also said that it was not as difficult for him to follow her as he thought he would be. This speaks at least in some respects to what she says at the end: there is an acceptance of this. ”
Towards the end of filming the document, it became clear that it could be Turner’s last farewell to the audience. Of course, she said goodbye before – her 1990 Foreign Affair tour was subtitled The Farewell Tour. He would go on to launch four more, ending with Tina !: 50th Anniversary Tour of 2008-9. But at 81, Turner looks older than ever. In the sequence in which she participated in the premiere of her Broadway show, she declares herself ready to bid for the final addition.
“It was palpable and she was very vocal about her reluctance to participate in the musical,” Martin said. “She deeply appreciates the celebration of her life, but being Tina Turner’s character – being Tina Turner’s symbol – is really exhausting for her. The way she expressed herself on the way to the premiere started to grow in our brains that, although we took this special POV in the film, it will be a little closer to her last word, possible. That being said, I wouldn’t be surprised if in five years, Tina will come out with another album. This is Tina Turner. ”