Joni Mitchell Biopic Set For ‘Christmas Next Year’
The long-rumoured Joni Mitchell biopic from writer and director Cameron Crowe (Almost Famous, Singles) is making progress, according to a new interview.
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Crowe gave Ultimate Classic Rock an update on the movie’s progress. “I’m super-excited. We’re going to start in by the end of this year and hopefully have it done for Christmas next year,” Crowe said. “You know, similarly to Heartbreakers Beach Party [the recently re-released Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers film, originally directed by Crowe in 1983], it’s Joni’s life, not through anybody else’s prism. It’s through her prism. It’s the characters who impacted her life that you know and a lot that you don’t know. And the music is so cinematic.”
“I found a lot of the people from her early life, a lot of them are still alive,” Crowe explained. “We’ve talked to them and what it was like to know Joni back then, as opposed to now. She’s the same girl from Saskatoon, you know? She’s got a lot of will and grit. It’s a life with a tale worth telling, filled with great music — and I get out of the way, just like Heartbreakers Beach Party.”
Mitchell was in the news last week after her triumphant return to the stage for a weekend of Joni Jam gigs at the Hollywood Bowl. The first night (19 October) saw the star have her say on the upcoming US presidential election. During Dog Eat Dog she referenced Donald Trump after the “big wig financiers” lyric.
“Everybody get out there and vote, this is an important one,” Mitchell went on to tell the crowd. “I wish I could vote, I’m a Canadian — I’m one of those ‘lousy immigrants,’” Mitchell joked.
Mitchell recently released the fourth volume of her Archives project, featuring live tracks from her time in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue during 1975 and 1976, songs from her 1979 tour and unreleased studio sessions and alternate versions of tracks from the albums Hejira, Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and Mingus.