(Los Angeles) The director of a new documentary devoted to Kanye West was disappointed, if not surprised, by the controversial remarks of the artist, who demanded at the last minute a new editing of the film started more than twenty years ago with his blessing.
Posted yesterday at 10:56 a.m.
Clarence “Coodie” Simmons started following his friend Kanye West with his camera in 2001, curious to see where the steps of this ambitious Chicago musician would take him. At the end of the journey to stardom, he found himself with 320 hours of previously unseen and often intimate footage.
The first part of Jeen-yuhs: The Kanye West Trilogy, which runs for a total of seven hours, is due to air from Wednesday on Netflix. But the artist, notoriously perfectionist and known for his whims, came forward last month on his Instagram account to demand approval of the final version of the project, in order to “control” his image.
“I told Kanye that he had to have 100% confidence in this film… He said he had confidence,” Coodie Simmons said in an interview with AFP. “So when I saw his Instagram, I was a little disappointed,” he says.
Just last week, Kanye West – who now calls himself only “Ye” – continued his requests, for example to have Drake, another rap star, provide the narration for the documentary. Netflix has not responded publicly.
Ironically, Coodie Simmons had in the past gone out of his way to please Kanye West. In particular, he had given up broadcasting his images for the first time in 2005, because the artist “said that he was not ready to show the world who he really is”.
” Extraterrestrial “
PHOTO PROVIDED BY NETFLIX
A scene from the documentary Jeen-yuhs: The Kanye West Trilogy
Over the years, the two men had moved away and Coodie Simmons says he had very little contact with Kanye West for ten years. But the singer showed up to a screening of the film in Hollywood on Friday, giving the director a hug.
“People try to erase us and we move away, we disperse, or we do not speak to each other anymore,” he launched to the public in the cryptic style which is customary for him.
Kanye West’s psychological problems are not avoided in the film. The entertainer suffers from bipolar disorder which led to his hospitalization in 2016 and appeared to play a role in his bizarre 2020 presidential bid.
Two years ago, Coodie Simmons returned to film his comrade during a meeting with real estate developers during which Kanye West had made very rambling remarks, saying for example that he had taken medication “to have a normal conversation and go from extra -terrestrial to English”.
Very disturbed by the state of his friend, Simmons had decided to turn off his camera. “It was the first time I filmed Kanye in this light”, explains this former humorist and television presenter.
“I felt like I had to put my camera down so I could listen to him and be there for him,” he says, noting that the situation happened a few times afterward.
“Careless”
On Friday, Kanye West, in his own way, tried to explain his eccentricities: “I made in public what may seem to you to be mistakes” in order to show the world the limits placed on African-Americans.
“We’re on labels we don’t own, we play on basketball teams that aren’t ours. The time has come,” he assured.
Simmons and his co-director Chike Ozah hope that showing Kanye West in his moments of weakness will allow audiences to rethink their opinion of an artist often derided as arrogant and megalomaniac.
Chike Ozah quotes this shared moment in a fast food where West celebrates the end of his recovery from a serious car accident that injured his jaw. “It’s a moment we share with Kanye, where he even takes the camera from Coodie and starts filming him, he looks carefree and so happy. »
After all these years, is Kanye West finally ready to show himself to the world as he is?
“That’s not really the question…I hope he watches that movie,” Simmons replies.
“The world has to see this, it’s not just a story between Kanye and me,” adds the director.