Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		3.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		4.0

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie Review

All I want is more Joni.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 24, 2014

I fell in love for the first time—as in truly, deeply, madly in love—while Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark played out as the soundtrack to my wildly beating heart. Unfortunately for the girl involved (she might actually say fortunately), I soon discovered that I had actually fallen in love with Joni Mitchell more seriously than with my ostensible girlfriend, something that became apparent with my fascination with Joni’s cool major ninth chords and brilliantly insightful poetry. The fact that I was also “cheating” with Laura Nyro from time to time in my moodier moments perhaps was another indication that my first “real” flesh and blood love was not destined to be my last. Joni’s music and lyrics have always had an unusually intimate impact on listeners, as my own experience proves—but I am most certainly not alone in my apprehension that when Joni sang of wounded pride or giddy romance, she was singing directly and solely for me. Joni has been through some incredible changes in her now long and storied career. Beginning as a charming if initially lightweight folk performer, by the time she recorded her first album it was already clear she was a major force to be reckoned with, and when a few years after that debut the almost magical triumvirate of Blue, For the Roses and Court and Spark established her as the leading female singer-songwriter of her generation, there was little doubt that Mitchell had rewritten the rules of pop superstardom in her own image. That rewriting also created problems for Mitchell, as the first half of this really excellent double feature makes clear. Never content within the confines of the “star making machinery” (to paraphrase Mitchell herself), Joni was always pushing boundaries. If some of her post-Court and Spark output struck some critics as excessively twee (or perhaps even more shocking, a little boring), she has continually sought to reinvent herself, delivering several standout albums in the process.

The first half of this would be double feature is the excellent 2003 episode of PBS’ American Masters series devoted to Joni, entitled A Woman of Heart and Mind, obviously referencing one of the more memorable songs on For the Roses. This is straight ahead though never dull biographical fare, tracing Joni’s evolution from a polio stricken child in the wilds of Saskatchewan to an unhappily married young bride who had just given up a child born out of wedlock to foster care (something that would haunt her for years, as evidenced by the heart wrenching song “Little Green” off of Blue) to becoming one of the protean forces of pop music in the late sixties and early seventies.

The documentary is rife with good—if not brilliantly insightful—interviews, including with Mitchell’s early love Graham Nash and one of her major professional mentors, David Geffen (Mitchell was one of the first artists signed to Geffen’s Asylum imprint for Warner). In fact, most of the insight here comes courtesy of Mitchell’s own incredibly penetrating lyrics, as well as some of her own commentary on how she sees her place in the overall scheme of the the mid-century folk and pop movements and what they ultimately morphed into. She expresses an almost architectural approach to writing a lyric, talking about how Dylan’s pieces tended to exist on static plateaus, and how she wanted more of a melodic and harmonic convergence to create temporary abutments on which she could momentarily build descriptive paragraphs. It’s a really interesting analysis of what has always seemed like Mitchell’s ability to spontaneously combust perfect little miniatures woven out of complex melodies and especially lyrics.

A Woman of Heart and Mind pays attention to one supposed glaring wart in Mitchell’s otherwise spotless complexion of pop perfection, her lambasted collaboration with Charles Mingus. Those who followed Mitchell throughout her heyday may question why relatively lackluster pieces like The Hissing of Summer Lawns or Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter (amazing albums, make no doubt, but without the sheer sonic magnificence of Court and Spark) are glossed over, but the documentary nicely ties some of Mitchell’s imagistic writing together, revealing for example how Hejira’s reference to the Cactus Motel actually calls back to one of Mitchell’s earliest songs.

There’s some subtext here as well dealing with Mitchell’s twin pursuit of art, but perhaps the most touching moments come at the end, with a brief montage detailing Mitchell’s reuniting with the daughter she long thought was lost. It’s fun to see Mitchell as “Grandma”, cavorting around a backyard with delighted grandchildren. Maybe some day they’ll realize what an astounding artist (in every sense of the word) they have for a relative.

The second half of the program on this Blu-ray disc is Mitchell’s 1988 concert entitled Painting With Words and Music. While this features Mitchell’s band circa the Taming the Tiger era, she actually covers a broad swath of her career, eschewing the "album versions" on almost all of these songs for sometimes innovative and exploratory new renditions. Mitchell performs in the round with former husband Larry Klein on bass, Greg Leisz on guitars, Brian Blade on drums and Mark Isham filling in for frequent Mitchell recording collaborator Wayne Shorter. Joni’s set list includes:

1. Big Yellow Taxi

2. Just Like This Train

3. Night Ride Home

4. Crazy Cries of Love

5. Harry’s House

6. Black Crow

7. Amelia

8. Hejira

9. Sex Kills

10. The Magdelene Laundries

11. Moon at the Window

12. Facelift

13. Why Do Fools Fall in Love?

14. Trouble Man

15. Nothing Can Be Done

16. Song for Sharon

17. Woodstock

18. Dream Land

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind & Painting With Words and Music is one of the relatively new line of so-called "SD Blu-rays" released by Eagle Vision (an imprint of Eagle Rock Entertainment). Perhaps Mitchell herself would applaud the label's honesty in marketing these upscaled offerings, which at least present lossless sound as a lure. Woman of Heart in Mind is presented in 1080i via the AVC codec in 1.74:1, and actually looks surprisingly decent, perhaps because so much of it features still photographs and contemporary interview segments. Some of the archival television footage is understandably variable and at times ragged looking. Painting With Words and Music, of somewhat older vintage, is presented in 1080i via the AVC codec in 1.33:1, and looks noticeably softer and blurrier than the documentary. Midrange shots are barely more than blobs of color here, and even the close-ups rarely rise much above DVD level quality. The 3.0 score above is an average of these two combined. I'd personally rate Woman of Heart and Mind at around a 3.5 and Painting With Words and Music at around a 2.5.

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As with the video aspect ratios, there are some slight variables at play with the audio on these two features. A Woman of Heart and Mind has both an LPCM 2.0 track as well as a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 offering, while Painting With Words and Music repeats the LPCM 2.0 track but has a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.0 mix sufficing for its surround option. There are some minor but noticeable phasing issues in the surround mix of A Woman of Heart and Mind, which are transitorily distracting but which are at least partially offset by the track's much more forceful low end. The documentary really doesn't have any complete music performances, and so the LPCM 2.0 track suffices quite well, delivering the interview segments and voiceover (mostly by Joni herself) with clarity and precision. The concert sounds great in both of its mixes, though with some of the same phasing in the surround mix (to a lesser degree than on the documentary), with excellent clarity and separation even in the stereo mix, something that is only increased in the DTS-HD Master Audio iteration. Joni's voice and guitar playing are prioritized very well, and the at times quite energetic band provides nicely nuanced accompaniment.

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Interview Outtakes (1080i; 14:58) are culled from A Woman of Heart and Mind and feature Joni talking about everything from having polio as a child to her love of Edith Piaf.

Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart & Mind / Painting With Words & Music Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

This is an absolutely fantastic double feature for any Joni Mitchell fan. The American Masters episode makes it abundantly clear why Joni is so lionized within the music world, but it also shows how surprisingly (and sometimes simultaneously) vulnerable and resilient she can be as well. The concert also offers some great, vigorous performances of a nicely divergent set of tunes culled from various eras of Joni's long and multifaceted career. While the upscaled video is variable, the audio for the most part is outstanding and helps to make this release Highly recommended.