In an age where celebrity and celebrity culture is so frontloaded in our collective consciousness, Kathryn Ferguson's new documentary, Nothing Compares, dissects the rise and fall of the iconic, and iconoclastic, Sinead O'Connor in an era ill-equipped to even attempt understanding her and her oft-publicised private life.
Nothing Compares begins with her now infamous appearance at the Bob Dylan 30th anniversary concert at Madison Square Garden in 1992, when the Irish singer was bombarded with a hail of cheers and boos that seemed to epitomise the divisive public perception of O'Connor in one swelling cacophony. From here, Ferguson explores the two standout strands of the singer's life; her unapologetic and unpretentious passion for her craft, and the deep-rooted hatred for the Catholic Church and its grip on conservative Ireland.
What's apparent is that while the prototypical story of an alternative artist reckoning with the innate trappings of fame is well documented, Ferguson seems far from interested in re-treading those particular footsteps. Instead, the Belfast-born director focuses on O'Connor's reputation as a trailblazer from the get-go and the following 100 minutes paint a vivid picture of an artist comprised of, what a friend in the movie calls, “fascinating contradictions”.
Pivoting from talking head interviews, and instead utilising simple voice over from both O'Connor and those that surrounded her during her career, Ferguson creates a streamlined collage of archival footage, still images and subtle re-enactments that colour in the lines of the audience's perception of the artist. What emerges is a fading snapshot of O'Connor's brief but potent position amongst the cultural zeitgeist of the late 80's and early 90's, and while recognised as a legitimate artist, her stardom was catapulted further by her nonconformist provocative nature. O'Connor's activism in supporting the pro-choice movement in Ireland, and her opposition to the Gulf War shot her to the forefront of the decade's emerging protest culture. Which in turn only brought more fame, more attention and more scrutiny.
If her ascent was meteoric, so was the subsequent implosion. Featured is crucial, and painful footage of the singer/songwriter's appearance on “SNL” in 1992 – two weeks before the aforementioned performance at that bookends the film – in which during a rendition of the Bob Marley song “War”, O'Connor tears up a picture of Pope John Paul II, the former head of the Catholic church, live on air. Famed and reviled for her activism, this seminal moment, an act of sheer rebellion in the face of an establishment that loomed large over her traumatic upbringing, opened the gates to a plethora of hate mail, press bashings and public scrutiny. Fellow artists in the “mainstream”, including Joe Pesci and Madonna, took very public swipes at O'Connor in the wake of this and Ferguson ensures we know just how bad it got, with the former claiming that if it were his show, “I would have gave her such a smack”.
It should come to no surprise then that O'Connor stepped out of the public eye. In the following years, despite her removal from the music industry, the figure of Sinead O'Connor is still one that's symbolic of courageous and progressive art; and Kathryn Ferguson's admiration for O'Connor's work as a musician and a provocateur, as well as someone who perhaps unintentionally opened the door to today's ground-breaking and empowering female artists, is brilliantly conveyed throughout. A must watch for fans of music documentaries.
Nothing Compares is out now.
