Review of I am a noise

Fantastic biopic of Joan Baez. I wanted to watch this because I'd just watched "A Complete Unknown", about Bob Dylan, in which Joan Baez is just one of several women that he has brief relationships with. 

I was expecting another music biopic, but it turned out to be a heart-rending documentary about Baez's really quite sad life - broken relationships with friends, family and lovers, and mental illness. This is clearly someone who talent (extending beyond music, her drawing is really good too) and success have not made at all happy. And this despite a genuine commitment to political struggle, that gave her a sense of purpose, but still didn't make up for the sadness that has haunted her since childhood.

I was struck also by the talent of her less well known sister, Mimi Farina, who lost the lover of her life at 21 and died of cancer at 56 - Mimi is responsible for the tune of "Bread and Roses", one of my favourites.

Watching the footage of her and Dylan singing at the March on Washington in 1963 it's hard not to be affected by the hope that's present in that huge multiracial crowd, and also hard not to feel that the hope was betrayed - look at America now.