In Sophie Fiennes’ new documentary, Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, there’s a scene where Jones performs her hit disco rework of "La Vie en Rose" on French television. Unimpressed with the “tacky” stage and female backup dancers, the Jamaican singer-songwriter, actress, and model protests to the show’s male producer, claiming the setup makes her look like the “madam of a brothel.” It’s a difficult interaction to watch, but it’s one that captures an icon whose career has been a testament to playing by no one’s rules but her own.
Capturing tough moments like these comes with the territory of filming someone for a decade like Fiennes did, starting with the recording and touring around Jones’ 2008 album, Hurricane. Rather than relying on traditional music-doc conventions like archival footage and talking-head interviews, Bloodlight and Bami is a cinéma vérité-style portrait that follows the singer onstage, in the studio with long-time collaborators Sly & Robbie, and at home with her family in Jamaica.
After making the film-festival rounds and getting a UK release last year, Bloodlight and Bami saw its North American debut on Friday, with screenings in New York and a wider release to follow. We recently spoke to Fiennes, best known for helming The Pervert’s Guide documentaries hosted by philosopher Slavoj Žižek, over the phone from London about why it was important to Jones to have a female director telling her story, and what advice her trailblazing subject gave Lady Gaga.
Sophie Fiennes: I first met Grace when she came to a screening of a film I made about her brother Noel’s Pentecostal community in Los Angeles [2002’s Hoover Street Revival]. We connected and had a very intense conversation, and then she wanted to show the film to other people. My way of working is really visual, and I think that interest in the visual language of things is something we share. She contacted me 18 months later and said, “I’ve been approached by a TV company and they want to do a film with me, and I’m always being approached, but I just don’t want to do that kind of generic film. Why don’t we just do something together?” She very much initiated it herself, and it was great to work without any third-party investors. I decided to keep shooting and it was a creative collaboration in that sense.
No, not at all. Grace is someone who really is an artist, she’s not a brand, you know? If you’re an artist, go the whole way, it’s all or nothing. So suddenly to be controlling things would be antithetical to the nature of what we were doing together. It was interesting for her to let go of control in that way, to invite my camera there. She was very respectful of allowing me to gather what I was gathering and not trying to interfere with that. You have to make that decision if you’re in front of the camera, because everything will be seen.
When I was first making this film and trying to find money for it, the lack of engagement in Grace as a subject really quite surprised me. I don’t know how to say it in a way that’s not ugly, but I feel the female experience coming from women is something that hasn’t been really allowed to be seen or heard. Female experience has been very sort of castrated, actually, to use a male frame of reference. There have been men who created amazing narratives around inventive female characters, and men have enjoyed experimenting with what a female psyche is. When you actually come with the real thing, with a woman who’s got as much agency as Grace Jones, it’s exciting to put that out there in a pure form as it were. Until #MeToo, there was some kind of normalizing of an expectation of how women might react or should be expecting to be treated, and it’s great that it’s being exposed.
Grace was very clear to me that she wanted to work with a woman, so she clearly has had to deal with this crap. And she’s dealt with it rather than been a victim of it, even if dealing with that has meant she’s been perceived as "challenging" or “complicated” or “difficult.” It’s interesting how acceptable or not it is to stand your ground from a female point of view. I think there should be just as much conversation about masculinity, and the kind of tensions that go on between men that women often can’t see. I’ve heard men talk about corporate boardrooms, where the main man gets the biggest salary, just talks at everybody, and no one’s actually allowed to question him. It’s about where power lies, and power and sexuality are obviously hugely interconnected.
There’s so much—so many one-liners. It’s her attitude isn’t it, the position from which she views the world, how she lives her life. When you’re with Grace, you often find yourself in hilarious and crazy scenarios. Grace onstage can be so extreme and then she comes backstage and she’s like, “I’ve had a chicken marinating for three days, do you want to have dinner?”
I remember one time when she had just come offstage and it was in a small, kind of grungy warehouse in London. It was like three in the morning and Philip Treacy, who was doing the hats and styling for her performance, knocked on the door of her Winnebago and said, “Grace, there’s two friends to see you.” And in through the door steps this lower middle class couple who were quite white and suburban, it’s a policeman and his wife, and Grace received them so gracefully. She was like, “Come in, this is the policeman who saved me on that Virgin flight.” She had some argument with the airline because they wouldn’t let her brother accompany her into the business lounge, because he didn’t have a business class ticket and she kicked up a fuss about it, and then they said, “Well we’re going to call the police.” So the policeman came and he was obviously really lovely to her. It’s very unexpected with Grace, you never really know, there’s always interesting things happening around her and unexpected things. The policeman and his wife sitting down, having a glass of Cristal.
I certainly remember being backstage when Lady Gaga came by. This must have been like 2008 and we didn’t actually know who she was. She said to Grace, “Have you got any advice for me entering the industry?” And Grace said, “Yes, I have got some advice for you. Spend time with interesting creative people who are NOT all going to be famous.” Great piece of advice. You think about the people who have been around Grace, there can be many different kinds of people doing interesting and creative things. In the music industry, it’s great to expose yourself to people in other creative disciplines.
I’ve got this personal affection for “The Apple Stretching,” because it reminds me of a time in my life. That’s something Grace says about her songs, she’ll say, “Oh this is a song that some of you have proposed to.” She told me that Michael Caine had said that he’d proposed to his wife playing “La Vie en Rose.” There’s always this kind of sense with a song, or even a film, when you encounter something that wakes you up to a part of yourself that you haven’t been woken up to. That’s the fantastic thing about pop music. I remember hearing the Ziggy Stardust album when I was 11 and it was like experiencing God, I just saw a universe that I knew mattered to me hugely. I listened to the lyrics and it changed my whole mindset as an 11-year-old to hear “Five Years.” So in the same way when I heard “The Apple Stretched,” when I was about 17, 16, before I ever got to New York, it just conjured up this idea of a place, the beginning of the day in this city. It was the first kind of brick in a love of what New York was.
