Joan Baez: I am a Noise is a documentary film which premiered in 2023.
It is about the life and career of Joan Baez, the famous artist and political activist, who was born in 1941.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Directors: Miri Navasky, Karen O’Connor, and Maeve O’Boyle
** Distribution: Magnolia Films
** Language: English
** Subtitles: English
** Run time: 113 minutes
Today Joan Baez is more than 80 years old. In this film, she is looking back at a long life. In this film, she tells us the story of her life.
This film covers several aspects of her life, including the following:
# 1. Her childhood and her family
** Her father = Albert Baez (1912-2007)
** Her mother = Joan Baez (senior) (1913-2013)
** Her older sister = Pauline (1938-2016)
** Her younger sister = Mimi (1945-2001)
# 2. The life of the artist
** The folk singer
** The musician
** The songwriter
# 3. The life of the political activist
** The Civil Rights Campaign
** The anti-war movement
# 4. Her relationships
** With Bob Dylan (1961-1965)
** With David Harris (1968-1973)
Joan Baez began her career as a folk singer in 1958. In 2018, she began a farewell tour.
The purpose of this tour was to give a series of concerts in order mark a formal end of her career in the music business which lasted for sixty years.
In this film, there are several short clips from concerts at different locations during the farewell tour.
What do reviewers say about this film?
Here are some results:
70 percent = IMDb
75 percent = Meta
84 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
94 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the critics)
On Amazon there are at the moment more than 250 ratings of this product, including more than 40 with reviews.
The average rating is 4.3 stars, which corresponds to a rating of 86 percent.
The ratings are quite good, as you can see. I understand the good ratings. I also understand why the ratings do not go all the way to the top. This film has some flaws. What is wrong? Let me explain.
# 1. This film is divided into chapters about different parts of her life. Some chapters are too short, while one chapter is too long. Here are some examples:
** The chapter about Joan Baez and the Civil Rights Campaign is too short
** The chapter about Joan Baez and the anti-war movement is too short
** The chapter about Joan Baez and her relationship with different members of her family, which is placed at the end of the film, is too long
# 2. In this film, there are several clips from live concerts. While the music is fine, the quality of the recordings is often poor.
# 3. This film cannot and should not cover each and every detail of her long life, but some events in her life and some aspects of her life are so important that it is wrong to exclude them.
Woodstock is the name of an open-air festival which was held in August 1969. It is a milestone in the history of popular music.
Was Joan Baez there?
Yes.
Did she perform there?
Yes.
At that time, Joan Baez was married to David Harris. She was pregnant with her first and only child. Her son Gabriel Harris was born in December 1969.
Is Woodstock mentioned in the film? No, it is not. It is excluded.
This is perhaps a minor omission, but still an omission, which is hard to understand; and hard to explain.
Since this film runs for almost two hours, I have to ask: Why is the Woodstock festival not included? Why was it impossible to devote a few minutes to this historical event during which Joan Baez played some of her popular songs?
The answer is blowing in the wind!
# 4. One chapter of the film covers her role in the anti-war movement.
She supported the campaign against the military draft. She met and married David Harris (who was a co-founder of the organization Resistance) while she was involved in this campaign.
She and Harris - and all the draft resisters - were opposed to the American war in southeast Asia. Most of them showed their protest against the war in the USA.
Joan Baez did more than this.
In December 1972, she travelled to Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. She happened to be there, when the US government launched an extensive bombing campaign on North Vietnam. American bombs were dropped on Hanoi while she was there.
She stayed at the Metropole Hotel, which was established in
1901, when Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were part of the French
colonial empire. It has been described as the most famous hotel in Vietnam.
Fortunately, the hotel was prepared for a bomb attack.
The manager of the hotel had told his staff to build a small underground shelter which could be available for foreign guests, in case the US decided to drop some bombs on the capital.
In December 1972, Joan Baez and other foreigners were told to go to this shelter during the bombing raids which were carried out every night for more than one week.
As it happened, the hotel was not hit, but other buildings in Hanoi were hit and destroyed.
In January 1973, Joan Baez returned to the US. During her visit, she saw the results of the American war with her own eyes. This visit made a huge impression on her.
The Vietnam war ended in 1975. At the Metropole in Hanoi, the bomb shelter was closed and sealed and soon its existence was almost forgotten.
In 2011, during a renovation of the Bamboo Bar located next to the swimming pool, in the open area between the old building and the new building, engineers made a surprising discovery.
When they started digging into the ground, they came upon a concrete construction! What was this? When they asked veteran members of staff, they found the answer:
The engineers had rediscovered the bomb shelter which had been built during the war.
The manager of the hotel decided that it should not be covered up again.
Instead, it should be restored and preserved as a historical monument. It was restored and reopened in 2012.
The story about the rediscovery of the bomb shelter in Hanoi was circulated all over the world. It reached the USA where Joan Baez read about it. At that time, some of her friends were planning a holiday in Vietnam.
Before they left the US, she met with them and handed them one of her paintings (painting was a recent hobby of hers).
She asked them to go to the Metropole and show the painting to the manager. She said:
“If he likes it, tell him to keep it. Is he does not care about it, just bring it back to me.”
Her friends travelled to Vietnam and they went to the hotel in Hanoi where they met with the manager. When he saw the painting made by Joan Baez, he was very happy. And so they gave it to him.
When they returned to the US, they had a letter from the manager to Joan Baez. The manager said he was grateful for the present. In addition, he invited her to go to Vietnam and to visit the hotel for a second time.
She accepted the invitation. In 2013, she was back in Vietnam, back in Hanoi, and she stayed at the Metropole for a second time.
While she was there, she visited the bomb shelter where she had spent several nights during her first visit in December 1972.
All her memories of the war came back to her. The second visit to Vietnam made a huge impression on her.
The management of the Metropole wants the history of the hotel to be preserved. A long corridor in the hotel is known as the Path of History.
The walls are decorated with old photographs and posters from the past life of the hotel.
Numerous memorabilia are on display in glass counters in the room next to the corridor.
Next to the pool and the Bamboo Bar, in the open area between the old building and the new building, a narrow staircase leads down to the small underground shelter.
The hotel arranges a guided tour about the history of the hotel. The tour includes a walk along the Path of History as well as a visit to the bomb shelter.
The tour is free, but it is only available to guests of the hotel. If you want to join this tour, you must stay at the hotel.
Joan Baez visited Vietnam in 1972 and she returned in 2013, 41 years after her first visit. Both visits made a huge impression on her.
In this film, we learn that she was involved in the anti-war movement.
In this film, we learn that she supported the campaign against the military draft.
What about her visits to Vietnam? The first visit in 1972? And the second visit in 2013? Are they covered in the film? No, they are not. There is not one word about her visits to Vietnam. Both visits are excluded!
This omission is not easy to understand; and not easy to explain. It can hardly be described as minor. It is a major omission.
Why do I focus so much on her visits to Vietnam? Why is this so important? Why do I devote so many words to her first visit in 1972 and to her second visit in 2013?
Because I have been to Vietnam. Because I have been to Hanoi. And because I have stayed at the Metropole. I was there in 2015. Only two years after Joan Baez was there.
While I was there, I joined the guided tour about the history of the hotel, which was an amazing experience. I saw the painting which Joan Baez painted during her second visit and I walked along the Path of History.
Later, in the open area, I walked down the narrow staircase and entered the small underground bomb shelter where Joan Baez and other foreigners spent several nights in December 1972 while American planes were dropping bombs on Hanoi.
Since this film runs for almost two hours, I have to ask: Why are her visits to Vietnam not included? Why was it impossible to find the time to cover these visits?
The answer is blowing in the wind!
Joan Baez is a well-known person who plays an important role in the modern history of the US. As an artist and as a political activist.
The story of her life deserves to be told, and in this film, it is done quite well. But not everything is good.
This film has some flaws, as you can see.
I have to remove one star because of these flaws. This product deserves a rating of four stars (80 percent).
REFERENCES
# 1. Items available online
Tim Cahill
“Joan Baez in Hanoi: 12 Days Under the Bombs,”
Rolling Stone
01 February 1973
Chris Brummitt (Associated Press)
“Joan Baez returns to Vietnam,”
Christian Science Monitor
10 April 2013
LTM staff
“Joan Baez Re-visits Hanoi 40 Years Later,”
Luxury Travel Magazine
29 April 2013
Burcu Basar
“Sofitel Legend Hanoi – Vietnam”
Bizarre Journeys
18 December 2016
Katie Kalmusky
“Inside the Historic Sofitel Legend Metropole Hanoi,”
The Culture Trip
19 March 2018
# 2. Books
And a Voice to Sing With:
A Memoir
By Joan Baez
(1987 = hardcover)
(2009 = paperback)
Joan Baez:
The Last Leaf
By Elizabeth Thomson
(2020)
When You See My Mother,
Ask Her to Dance:
Poems
By Joan Baez
(2024)
# 3. Film and video
Joan Baez
How Sweet the Sound
Run time: 90 minutes
(2009)
Joan Baez
75th Birthday Celebration
Run time: 90 minutes
(2016)
The Boys Who Said No:
Draft Resistance and the Vietnam War
Run time: 90 minutes
(2020)
Both Joan Baez and David Harris
are interviewed in this film
*****
Joan Baez and Bob Dylan together
during the March on Washington
28 August 1963
*****
Joan Baez
in the small
underground bomb shelter
at the Metropole Hotel
in Hanoi
in 2013
*****
Joan Baez
in concert
2016
*****
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