At the Museum of the Moving Image, I watched a documentary about Grace Jones called Bloodlight and Bami, chronicling her life in 2005 of visiting her family in Jamaica, performing her shows around the world with an Afrofuturism style, negotiating over her records with her collaborators, and just generally being awesome. I loved how blunt and funny she was (especially mocking a tacky overly pink set she was made to perform in on a French TV show) as well as how sweet and warm she was when bare-faced and chilling with her family. I just loved seeing the contrasts between her as just Grace with her family, vs. applying makeup and stage costumes as “Grace Jones” onstage.
The documentary feels very caught on the fly, without captions to state years or locations, so a lot of her life just seems like a blur of traveling all over as she switches between speaking English, French, and Jamaican patois. It didn’t reflect as much on her whole career, it just would show her in concert performing hits like “Pull Up to the Bumper,” “Warm Leatherette,” “Slave to the Rhythm,” and others.
I used to have one of her albums, Nightclubbing, and dug how her music is a great mix of rock, R&B, funk, and other influences, she’s an incredible artist to watch onscreen.
No comments:
Post a Comment