What Happened, Miss Simone?
The film depicts the life and legend Nina Simone, classically trained pianist, dive-bar chanteuse, black power icon and legendary recording artist, who lives a life of brutal honesty, musical genius, and tortured melancholy.
15 January 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
October 3, 1925 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA
16 November 1958, New York City, New York, USA
1 February 1902, Joplin, Missouri, USA
8 December 1925, Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
14 December 1945, Los Angeles, California, USA
9 April 1926, Chicago, Illinois, USA
1 March 1927, New York City, New York, USA
29 January 1941, Port of Spain, Trinidad, British West Indies [now Trinidad and Tobago]
19 May 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, USA
22 July 1962, USA
12 September 1962, Mount Vernon, New York, USA
12 March 1932, New Orleans, Louisiana, USA
4 November 1916, St. Joseph, Missouri, USA
21 February 1933, Tryon, North Carolina, USA
6 July 1925, San Mateo, California, USA
12 October 1932, St. Louis, Missouri, USA
2 August 1924, Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
4 December 1925, Halifax County, Virginia, USA
February 16, 2016
Powerful, intimate, and fresh. We desperately need to hear more women talking about being driven in an inexorable way toward a passion.February 22, 2016
A rich and complex tapestry chronicling Simone from her early years struggling to break in.June 24, 2015
"What Happened" features some of the best concert footage and musical performances in recent music doc memory, even if it never quite answers the question in its title.July 10, 2016
A biographical sketch so scintillating and authoritative that one barely registers how stylistically generic it is.June 23, 2015
An often electric, bracingly urgent documentary ...June 25, 2015
As music and cultural critic Stanley Crouch says, "You only have to hear her once. No one sounds like her except her."February 19, 2016
A feisty and frequently moving documentary on the life and musical career of singer/songwriter Nina Simone.June 24, 2015
It may not answer What Happened, Miss Simone?, but it does tell us why the question must be asked and will be asked, for a very long time.April 12, 2017
It's an astounding work that is both jarring and unapologetic in its examination of a musical genius.June 26, 2015
I think the film overreaches in casting Simone as a standard-bearer against racism and sexism, but it's filled with mesmerizing clips from throughout her performing career as well as numerous interviews with Simone, both audio and on film.