American singer Tina Turner’s death on May 24 unleashed a flood of tributes to her raspy voice, electric stage performances and boundless charisma – but most of all to her bravery. Turner overcame a hardscrabble childhood, domestic violence and a fallow professional period before becoming one of the most recognized singers of all time. The documentary Tina (2021), which can be rented on Prime Video, is as good a place as any to revisit Turner’s singular life.
Directed by Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin, Tina moves back and forth in time, featuring both archival interviews as well as conversations in the present with Turner and others. It begins with a typically rambunctious live show. The 118-minute film makes judicious use of Turner’s stage performances, contrasting the artist effortlessly commanding attention in the arena with the woman who was abused for years by her husband, the celebrated musician Ike Turner.
The film gets its leitmotif from the very aspect of Turner’s past that she was loath to revisit. The beatings and marital rapes that Turner endured – which she likened to torture – finally prompted her to flee the marriage. Her decision to speak out about her experiences in 1981 in a magazine interview – a rare occurrence in the.
