Joni Mitchell Biopic In The Works
Joni Mitchell has been working with director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Jerry Maguire) on a feature film based on her life.
According to a story on Above The Line – which has been reposted on Mitchell’s own website – the project is not a documentary and Mitchell has been collaborating with Crowe on the script for the past two years.
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News of the movie comes at a time when Mitchell has been re-emerging into the spotlight. Mitchell, 79, has not released a studio album since 2007’s Shine and kept a low profile after her 2015 aneurysm. But she returned to live performance with a surprise set at Newport folk festival in July 2022, playing 13 songs alongside Brandi Carlile and others, and is due to play another solo show in June at Washington state’s Gorge Amphitheatre. A live album of her Newport performance is also planned, Mitchell told Elton John in an interview in November.
Though Mitchell has previously been protective when it comes to unreleased material, in recent years Rhino have embarked upon a reissue project featuring outtakes and live material, beginning with Joni Mitchell Archives – Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963–1967) in 2020.
In 2000, Crowe wrote, “Every journalist has their dream list of interview subjects. Mine was Marvin Gaye, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. I never got to Marvin Gaye, but Joni Mitchell more than made up for it. My last cover story for the magazine, and still my favorite.”
Crowe has a track record of music-related film projects. He drew upon his experiences as a teenage rock journalist for 2000’s Almost Famous, which he recently adapted into a failed Broadway musical, and documented the grunge explosion in the public imagination with 1992’s Singles. In 2019, Crowe produced the documentary David Crosby: Remember My Name, about the folk-rock singer-songwriter who died in January this year.