Film Forum

“I am not a saint, I am a noise,” wrote 13-year-old Joan Baez in her journal, reflecting on a discordance between her outer and inner lives that would only deepen. Icon of ’60s folk music and activism, Baez made the cover of TIME at 21, her relationship with Bob Dylan was widely publicized, and she famously performed “We Shall Overcome” at the March on Washington. What the public didn’t know: she was subject to racist taunts as a child (her father was Mexican), suffered intense anxiety, and harbored long-simmering questions about unacknowledged family trauma. An intimate, revelatory portrait of an artist looking back on a six-decade career, crafted from a wealth of never-before-seen home movies, diaries, and audio recordings, while following Baez during her 2018 farewell tour.

Presented with support from the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Fund

2023     113 MIN.     USA     MAGNOLIA PICTURES

Reviews

"Whether you’ve followed her career for decades or are just now discovering [Baez], the life under scrutiny is undeniably impressive and ceaselessly engaging.”
– Todd McCarthy, Deadline

“A stirring, emotionally engaging journey from start to finish…about [a] towering icon of music and social justice. It’s a raw, personal look at her life in all its glory and misery. A more moving cinematic testament to Joan Baez could not exist.”
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed, Hammer to Nail

“Baez holds nothing back as she goes through an entire storage locker full of a life’s worth of journals, photographs, artwork, home videos, and tape recordings… These primary sources tell a story all their own, illuminating Baez’s rich inner world and creative spirit to great effect…[with] plenty of crowd-pleasing footage of both well-known and rarely-seen Baez performances that will delight her biggest fans and initiate those unfamiliar with her talent.”
– Danita Steinberg, POV Magazine

“The film’s fascinating prologue has Baez speaking to, and physically illustrating, what’s necessary for a world-class, gold-throated singer to go out on the road in her late 70s…But there’s no less intrigue when the documentarians flash back to her early life — when Baez emerged as a virtual overnight sensation... Whether crooning at Carnegie, marching in Selma or dueting with paramour Bob Dylan, she wasn’t just a TIME magazine cover subject but a poster girl for a kind of wholesomely sexy liberal social consciousness.”
– Chris Willman, Variety