wanted to be inside her mind ; we were always trying to represent the interior Joan , light and dark .”
The movie isn ’ t narrated except for the voiceover of Joan ’ s younger self reading from her diary . It ’ s a visual memoir , with the past informing the present , the present informing the past , in a sort of dreamscape . Joan ’ s on-camera candor — on aging , motherhood , sibling rivalry , the breakup with Dylan , the family trauma , the career — is both moving and inspiring .
“ The power of the film is her honesty about things large and small in her life , which is rare within that entertainment industry ,” says Karen . “ She ' s still gorgeous at her age , but she ' s unfiltered — no work , no makeup . Other people would never have allowed us to film some of the scenes . I joked somewhere along the way on the festival route that yes , she was threatened by the Ku Klux Klan . Yes , she was in the bomb shelter of Hanoi . Yes , she was gassed in Latin America . But maybe the bravest thing she ' s ever done is doing a vérité film with only natural light .”
The film ’ s title is lifted from a piece of writing that Joan did when she was 13 . “ We wanted a title that was a little surprising , that had a little bit of an edge ,” reflects Karen , who first met Joan when she did a PBS interview with her in 1986 . ( Some of that interview appears in the movie .) The two hit it off , and Karen became close , personal friends with Joan and her family .
Because of the relationship between Karen and Joan , it was important to include the two other directors to ensure that a wider audience would understand the film . Karen and Miri formed their own production company , Mead Street Films , more than 20 years ago and have worked closely together , making social issue films for the PBS documentary series FRONTLINE . “ Editorial control was important from the beginning ,” says Karen . “ We had final cut ; Joan didn ’ t . So many of these celebrity docs can be vanity pieces .”
Miri and Karen first started working on the film back in 2013 , when Karen went to California to do some filming with Joan ’ s mom on her 100th birthday . They put the footage aside while they worked on another film for FRONTLINE , Growing Up Trans , which Maeve edited . It wasn ’ t until 2017 , when Joan started grappling with the decision of whether to do a final tour , that they fully committed to the film . They decided early on to use natural light to give the interviews a raw , intimate feel . The visual perspective during the concerts was of Joan looking out to the audience , rather than the other way around .
What interested Miri and Karen from the start was following a woman who was coming to the end of a six-decade career . The vérité was crucial in terms of the contemporary story , because they would be following Joan over a pivotal time in her life and they wanted to be able to capture it in real time . Whether or not she would retire really didn ’ t matter . There were instances when Joan was resistant to filming — like on the tour bus or during a voice lesson — and it took Karen ’ s close friendship to open her up .
It wasn ’ t the concert footage , the interviews , or the travel that was most challenging . It was Joan ’ s vast archives . Miri did the heavy lifting when it came to going through the archives ; the amount of material was a blessing and a curse . Joan kept journals from the time she was young . Her father had an audio archive — letters they sent back and forth on quarter-inch audiotapes . And Joan ’ s mother was this amazing letter writer and had her own archive of journals . There were the home movies , therapy tapes , photos , hundreds of letters back and forth to David Harris when he was in prison .
“ In terms of her personal archives , she just gave us the keys to this vast storage unit ,” says Miri . “ We saw things that she hadn ' t seen in 30 years , 40 years , 50 years . She didn ' t hold back anything .
“ The film came alive the most for me when I was listening to her audiotaped letters that she wrote , letters where she ' s envisioning herself as a leader and hundreds of thousands of people are following her . There were tons of audiotapes like that , where she is basically fantasizing about who she ends up becoming . She ' s so young and idealistic and full of herself and full of excitement to be the next Gandhi and whatever it is . I loved that stuff . I had so much trouble cutting it down , and it moved me more than the particular political protests . She ' s been this way since she was a little girl , and she ' s still this way in her 80s . It was just incredible to me .”
From top , stills from I Am a Noise , Joan Baez , © Albert Baez ; James Baldwin , Joan Baez , and James Forman at the Selma March , © Matt Heron ; Bob Dylan and Joan Baez in Crossed Lights , New Haven , Connecticut , 1965 , © Daniel Kramer . Opening night of I Am a Noise , October 6 , 2023 , at Film Forum , from left , director / producer Karen O ' Connor , Joan Baez , director / producer Miri Navasky , and director / editor Maeve O ’ Boyle .
Spring 2024 BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE // 13