A Movie a Day, day 60: Nina Simone Great Performances

This hour-long portrait of Nina Simone at the height of her mesmerizing powers is an effective anecdote to the unacknowledged white privilege that poisoned the well in Mugabe and the White African.

Nina Simone Great Performances: College Concerts and Interviews consists almost entirely, as promised, of footage of Simone performing on college campuses in what appears to be the late '60s or early '70s and talking to the camera about her art between interviews. (The movie never got a theatrical release, but it came out on DVD last year and is now available through iTunes and Amazon.) On the other side of the camera was Andy Stroud, who was at the screening last night and spoke a bit before the movie, which he said he funded by cashing in his police pension fund.

Stroud was Simone's husband and manager when he filmed the footage (though he didn't edit it into a film until recently), so he got excellent access. That includes watching Simone perform from backstage and capturing soundless sequences of her playing with their young daughter. Much more importantly, it also means getting access to the artist at her best—relaxed, undefensive, and confident that her audience understands and appreciates her.

There's nothing artful about Stroud's film, which includes clumsy tricks like cutting to white or black for a few seconds between takes or focusing on blurry discs of light, presumably to approximate the feeling of a trippy '60s light show. Yet it feels powerful and alive, capturing the vitality and significance of a politically engaged artist in her joyous prime. Read the rest on The House Next Door, Slant Magazine's blog.