My apologies if this has already been sent to the list. Les -------------- A Trip to the Past With Joni Mitchell
By STEVE HOCHMAN Filmmaker Allison Anders paid homage to one of the female titans of '60s and '70s pop music with her 1996 movie "Grace of My Heart," loosely based in part on the life of Carole King. Now Anders is making a film about one of the other woman pillars of that time: Joni Mitchell. The singer-songwriter has hired Anders to make a documentary of her recording new versions of some of her songs with a full orchestra. The sessions and shooting began last week at Air Lyndhurst, George Martin's London studio complex. "I've talked with Joni at length about what we want to do, and what's so exciting for me is the idea of her revisiting her old material," Anders says. "She just did 'Circle Game' with the full orchestra, and while the original is youthful with just her and the acoustic guitar, now she's singing alto and has all that experience to put into it." The film, like the album tentatively titled "Circle Game," will center on the performances with conductor Vince Mendoza and 77 members of the London Symphony Orchestra, but will use the new versions of the old songs (including "Woodstock," "Amelia" and "Judgment of the Moon and Stars") as entries into explorations of Mitchell's life and art. Anders plans to supplement the performance footage with interviews, examinations of Mitchell's paintings and a look at her family life after she was reunited a few years ago with the daughter she had given up for adoption shortly after birth. "The film will look at all the changes that have happened in her life since these songs were written," Anders says, "not the least of which is being reunited with her daughter and grandchildren." Anders is finding plenty to relate to in the subject matter, both in her experiences as a woman in the arts and the steps made by her daughter, singer-songwriter Tiffany Anders, who debuted last year with an album produced by Polly Jean Harvey. "There's so much I've learned from [Mitchell's] experiences," Anders says. "As a woman, even though I work in a different medium, there's a lot of the same stuff. She says, 'Well, for a while I was called chick music.' Imagine--Joni Mitchell dismissed as chick music! And now I read an article about chick books, so here we go again." This is the second time Anders and Mitchell have teamed to look at the past. For the "Grace" soundtrack, Mitchell wrote the song "Man From Mars" in the style of her early work.
