Notorious?

Went to see The Notorious Bettie Page at the Watermans this evening. My comment at the end was "What was that for?". It was all very competently filmed and acted, but was a fairly straight forward linear bio-pic, and if you aren't going to use the events of someone's life to make some kind of point, or tease out some historical significance then why bother?



She was portrayed as a total innocent, which just didn't ring true either. At the end she acheived some kind of corny enlightenment, and was reborn as a bible punching evengelist. Maybe that's what actually happened but it was portrayed in a really postitive light, which I found offensive. Give me Bondage over Communion any day. The director Mary Harron made a film called "I shot Andy Warhol", which didn't fall into the same traps as this, in that it focussed on a specific incident (Andy's shooting by a rabid feminist) rather than a simple run through of Warhol's life, so I was disappointed that she could have turned a potentially fascinating subject like this into something quite dull.

Still there was some nice vintage black and white footage of NY used, which I think is what resulted in the rest of the film also being shot in a very grainy b&w. This was with the exception of a few sequences, usually accompanied by some kitch 50's syrupy song, which were shot in ultra-vibrant technicolor. This made a really nice contrast to the rather drab grey tones of the rest of the film as the colour sequences really exploded onto the screen. Never mind we're going to see the new Almodovar next week, which looks V. good.