Tina Turner’s life – marked by both a dark tragedy and a triumphant success – has been well documented over the years. There was the 1981 People magazine story that first revealed the terror and abuse she suffered in a long marriage to her musical partner Ike Turner; the 1987 biography Me, tina she wrote with MTV journalist Kurt Loder; the 1993 Oscar nominated biopic based on that book, What does love have to do with it?, who starred Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne; and the musical jukebox Tina which debuted in 2018 in London’s West End before moving to Broadway.
This weekend’s new HBO documentary Tina, however, will be the final call for the celebrated 81-year-old singer before she silently leaves the public eye forever – or at least plan, judging from her own comments in the final minutes of the thrilling and poignant project directed by the filmmaker duo Oscar winner Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin (Undefeated, LA 92)
In a recent interview with Yahoo Entertainment, Lindsay and Martin admitted that there was “definitely a hesitation” in following these other means of telling Turner’s story, but they intended not to make the film a pure exploitation of his trauma.
“But in the first discussions with Tina, what we realized is that the trauma is still very much present in her life, it is always bubbling under the surface”, says Martin. “In our first conversations with her, we didn’t have to talk about Ike. It came naturally. And she told us, if she thinks about it too much or has to talk about her past, Ike comes to her in her dreams – or nightmares, really. And it looks like these things were happening yesterday. “
Tina takes what the directors then describe as a meta-approach to the violence and conflicts that Turner has faced in his life. He dives straight into the subject in the opening minutes, and the first half of the film focuses on his 16-year partnership and marriage with Ike, who died in 2007. Like the duo Ike & Tina Turner, the woman was born Anna Mae Bullock’s early career synonymous with her ex, and the 81-year-old describes how she survived the torture in that relationship – the abuse not just of Ike’s hands, but of shoe stretchers, coat hangers and sizzling coffee, and the sex she described as “a kind of rape. “
“Tina is open and willing to talk about things, she is very aware of the consequences this can have for her personally, to talk about specific chapters in her life,” says Lindsay. “She is very honest about her own story,” adds Martin. “It’s just that she is doing her best to live a very healthy and peaceful life.”
The film becomes a goal when, in its last half, a section is dedicated to the frustrations that Turner faced as he was constantly chased by personal questions about his past – as evidenced by some very uncomfortable old interview clips, including one she is sitting on. next to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome co-star Mel Gibson. As her husband Erwin Bach says, it’s as if Turner had been in battle, and the PTSD haunts her every day, not to mention the memories of a troubled childhood in a Tennessee shark family that was also marked by domestic violence.
“It wasn’t a good life,” says Turner in the film. “It was in some areas, but the good has not overcome the bad.”
This last half, however, is also quite sublime, as Turner shows, free from Ike’s destructive clutches, emerging as a solo artist and exploding to world fame – fulfilling her goal throughout her career of filling stadiums (as large as 186,000) in Rio) in mesmerizing images of concert performances. Seeing Turner bounce around the stage like a force of nature, after 50 when the single “What does love have to do with it?” pushed her into the stratosphere, we are reminded of the rare feat she accomplished in reaching this level of success as a female solo artist at that age and at that stage of her career.
The film also finds a happy ending in the relationship with Turner, who has long regretted her inability to find love, and with the German music executive Bach, who she met in 1986 and married in 2013. In one of the most sincere and exciting moments in the film, Turner is telling the length of her relationship from her castle-style home in Zurich, Switzerland, when she checks out the facts with him in real life. “How many years later are we married?”, She shouts in the other room. “Twenty-seven,” he replies quickly.
When Turner and Bach are shown returning to New York in 2019 to attend the Broadway musical premiere, it is noted that Turner saw the trip as an opportunity to “say goodbye to American and American fans”. Bach says to the filmmakers: “This documentary, this play, that’s it. It’s closure. “
Such a phrase may worry Turner fans due to his age and health problems over the years. She suffered a stroke in 2013, was diagnosed with intestinal cancer in 2016 and considered assisted suicide before her husband donated a kidney for transplant surgery in 2017. But “in terms of health, the last time we contacted her and her husband, she was both. in a good mood and feeling healthy, ”says Martin.
Her announced outings with the musical and now the HBO documentary are more a matter of gracefully abandoning Tina Turner’s personality and enjoying a peaceful private life in retirement.
“From what we understand now, his main intention is to live in his incredible castle in Zurich, by the lake,” says Martin. “And do what Tina wants to do, be it gardening, decorating the house or just reading a book.”
Tina opens on Saturday, March 27 on HBO.
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