Over the weekend a new Tina Turner documentary, Tina, dropped on HBO. The film chronicles Tina’s life from her foray into rock n roll with the Ike and Tina Turner Review to the rise of her solo career at 45 after leaving Ike. It is said to be Tina’s curtain call on her public life. For so long the narrative has focused on her abusive relationship with Ike Turner. Tina agreed to do this documentary because she wanted to focus on what she was able to accomplish after such a traumatic sixteen years with Ike. The HBO documentary’s co-creators, Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin, were interviewed by Yahoo! They said that Tina relives the trauma every time she has to speak about her past. Tina’s goal now is to live a “peaceful and healthy” life. Below is an excerpt from Yahoo!:
This weekend’s new HBO documentary Tina, however, will be the celebrated 81-year-old singer’s final curtain call before she quietly slips out of the public eye for good — or at least plans to, judging from her own comments in the waning minutes of the stirring and poignant project directed by Oscar-winning filmmaking duo Dan Lindsay and T.J. Martin (Undefeated, LA 92).
Tina takes what the directors describe, then, as a meta approach to the violence and strife Turner endured in her life. It dives right into the subject in its opening minutes, and the first half of the film focuses on her partnership and 16-year marriage with Ike, who died in 2007. As the duo Ike & Tina Turner, the woman born Anna Mae Bullock’s early career is synonymous with her ex, and the 81-year-old describes surviving the torture in that relationship — the abuse from not just Ike’s hands but shoe stretchers, coat hangers and scalding hot coffee, and the sex she’s described as “a kind of rape.”
“Tina is open and willing to talk about things, she’s just very aware of the consequences it can have for her personally, to talk about particular chapters of her life,” Lindsay says. “She’s very honest about her own story,” Martin adds. “It’s just she’s doing her best to live a very healthy and peaceful life.”
The film turns meta when, in its latter half, one section is devoted to the frustrations Turner faced as she was constantly being dogged by personal questions about her past — as evident by some very uncomfortable old interview clips, including one in which she’s sitting next to Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome co-star Mel Gibson. As her husband Erwin Bach puts it, it’s like Turner had been to battle, and the PTSD haunts her everyday, not to mention memories from a troubled childhood in a sharecropping Tennessee family that was also scarred by domestic violence.
“It wasn’t a good life,” Turner says in the film. “It was in some areas, but the good didn’t outbalance the bad.”
That latter half, though, is also largely sublime, as it shows Turner, freed from the destructive clutches of Ike, breaking out as a solo artist and exploding to worldwide fame — fulfilling her career-long goal of filling stadiums (as big as 186,000 in Rio) in mesmerizing concert doc footage. Seeing Turner jolt across the stage like a force of nature, past the age of 50 when the single “What’s Love Got to Do With It?” pushed her into the stratosphere, we’re reminded what a rare feat she accomplished in reaching that level of success as a solo female artist at that age and that stage of her career.
I have always been a fan of Tina Turner and have watched the film twice already. My mom and I watched it together the second time. Tina’s story is inspirational because she went through so much yet was able to claw her way to the top. One of the things that I love the most about Tina’s journey is how her life took off at the age of 45 which is the age I almost am now. She didn’t find true love until she was almost fifty. I agree that Tina’s story should not begin and end with the trauma she experienced at the hands of her romantic partner. Tina fought back and found a spiritual path that helped her free herself. Despite the pain Tina experienced she never gave up on herself and her desire to fill stadiums.
Tina was open enough to experience love from a man from a different culture and ethnic group who was sixteen years younger. I also love how Tina had such vitality and energy throughout this film. Tina’s story is the epitome of “it is never too late and you are never too old.” The more I learn about Tina the more I love her and feel connected to her. I will never forget how fierce she was in Mad Max and she was damn near fifty ya’ll! Another favorite part of the film is when Tina started chanting. She said when she went on stage about a month into her new practice, someone shouted, “Tina you are receiving now!” I know that experience. It is the journey I have been on since I started practicing and teaching Traditional Tantric yoga. If you haven’t seen the film yet, please do and prepare to be inspired and uplifted. Tina’s story is not only a story of hope, it is a study on “the best revenge is your paper” and a love story on how Tina fell in love with Erwin and with herself. I hope that this is the legacy Tina has always dreamt of leaving and that she has put her demons to rest. I also hope that Tina will be able to live that life of peace that she has been working hard to create.
photos credit: Avalon.red and via Instagram
Tina is a force of nature.
YES. I was down Sun. night but watched the Tina doc, and it actually had a spiritual impact on me.
Because I expected some BS — she’s a star, you expect some. Maybe some preening and acting like the grande dame.
But she was so authentic! Raw even at moments. I’ve always been a fan for her energy but Sun. she helped me. Not because of her inspiring story so much as just feeling her humanity.
I absolutely love this Oya, thank you. I also have so much love for Tina Turner, and I think, as wonderful as the Angela Bassett film was, it ended just as the really amazing part of the story began – when she made this amazing career for herself in her mid 40s! I look forward to watching this.
I have also watched this documentary twice, it really is SO GOOD! I read her autobiography and seen What’s Love Got to Do With It more times than I can count. Tina Turner is the epitome of class, strength and talent. She is a national treasure and I am grateful to her for sharing her journey with us.
Slightly ot, but it was nice to see Kurt Loder! I’ve always found him sexy af, lol.
Does it cover her home in France?
Many years ago now, her home was profiled by Architectural Digest and was the cover feature. Her home is amazing! It is incredibly styled, but there was so much in there that was personal to her – it wasn’t just a place she hired someone else to fill furniture and objects. She lived (still lives?) there almost full time and it really showed in how the incredible home had a personality and those little homey touches around the edges of the photos. I loved it so much, I actually saved that issue and I do NOT save magazines. I would love to see her home profiled again, I bet it’s different but just as great.
I forgot to mention this above because I was so moved by her. But the house they showed was gorgeous!
It had an incredible view on top of so much character inside. It all looked personal.
I need to look it up, that’s just my thing. Thank you!
Thanks, Oyo. I can not wait to watch!
I didn’t realise she was 45 when she left Ike and her career really took off! It’s so amazing to see that – when so many are being written off in their 40s, actually it’s possible to fulfil your dreams, not matter what age. Tina really is an inspiration
I’m glad she’s being publicly vocal about taking a step back and about people constantly trying to make her relive the worst parts of her life as if that was what defines her. It must be horrible as a trauma survivor to build what she has built but only have people refer back (in songs as well, one reason Jay Z is cancelled for me) to the abuse. I’ve loved Tina for many years, decades, and glad she is continuing to do what’s right for her. Hopefully the “fans” will follow, if they really care about her and not the abuse drama of decades past.
Agreed. Sometimes without even meaning to as allies, the way we talk about trauma can be really reductive and harmful, both to people and whole communities. It can rob others of their need and right to be other things, and also become a way to avoid addressing other issues too. Some things really shouldn’t be turned into jokes and insults either, and hopefully this reckoning that’s happening will cut down on some of that.
So true @Otaku fairy
I don’t see this opening anyone’s eyes (cough Jay Z) because people who use other people’s trauma as material for their art/lyrics aren’t going to suddenly change. And the damage is done. Little kids singing that lyric, pop culture referencing it, it’s too late, and no amount of education is going to stop it from continuing to be part of the cultural lexicon. That said, though, hopefully this brings a halt to it for Tina. She’s reclaiming her life. All these years we celebrated her and to see the harm that the continual reference to the worst trauma that nearly ended her life, never reference to what she built/created beyond that, for so many decades. It just makes me so angry for her. That she now is saying she’s stepping back from everything in part because of that. People just don’t get it and they never will so artists need to take things into their own hands and live their own lives on their own terms. If that means away from all of the fan frenzy, then so be it. If people can’t see her for who she is apart from one time of horror, then they don’t deserve to see her at all.
Thanks for sharing. I love all things Tina Turner.
I loved the documentary! And I loved her relationship with her husband. They are so cute together. And I thought he looked a bit like Colin Firth in some of the first few photos of him and her together.
And I am sad that no one will stop asking her about Ike. There was a whole scene where you see her tense up and her whole body flushes. And I really hope that the black community as a whole takes a look at how we made fun of the abuse she suffered and still reference it in music. I really can’t stand Beyonce’s Drunk in Love because of references to Ike.
Thanks for this, OYA. I’ve been a huge fan of Tina’s for years. She is a remarkable woman who hasn’t just survived, she’s thrived. I don’t get HBO, but I hope to eventually see this documentary. Glad she’s telling her story on her terms.
I cannot wait to watch this. I practically burned a whole in her greatest hits CD when I was in law school. Such an amazing woman.
I grew up in the 70s to Ike and Tina. When Private Dancer came out I was 25yo in panama city beach fl. My boss at Pineapple Willie’s bar took the whole staff to a Tallahassee concert to see Ms. Turner. Can you imagine. God it was great.