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Film: The Notorious Bettie Page [R] 90 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.50
Where Viewed: Landmark Harvard Exit Theatre, Seattle, WA
When 1st Seen: 26 April 2006
Time: 4:45 p.m.
Review Dedicated to: Candace G. of Wilmette, IL and Marlys H. of Blackhawk, CO
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DVD | soundtrack |
While the condition is very rare, sometimes when a movie ends, I don’t know exactly what to say. This is one of those times. From the very opening flicker of this black and white film, the shadows, the subtext, and the pretense failed to evoke much emotionally in me other that an eventual sense of profound sadness.
Featuring the life of the “number one pin-up model in the universe”, Ms Bettie Page, as she ‘grows up too fast’ under the specter of implied sexual abuse by her father, marries too young to a physically abusive man whom she leaves only to find herself lured into the middle of a very disturbing gang rape, and eventually ends up in a place in her life where the only people she can really trust turn out to be the kingpins of the not-so-soft-core, pin-up model industry. As I wrote, by the end, I just felt sad. I felt sad that the events in her life and her eventual realization that the values and morals she had always thought she held dear but were in direct conflict with her chosen profession, ended up creating an outwardly charming yet inwardly confused person.
Now, the story is what it is. It is not intended to be uplifting. In fact, it may well be that co-writer/director Mary Harron hoped the story would illustrate, in a classy way, the fundamental dilemmas faced by women (and men for that matter) who take to a life of pin-up, or even more 'advanced' forms, modeling. As the model, one has to convince oneself that the result is harmless, and it is just a way to make a living. Yet, there would be no industry if there weren’t buyers of the material. Yet, again, there would be nothing to buy if people didn’t model for the pictures. You can go back and forth and back and forth in your mind trying to figure out which is worse producing, posing, selling, or buying? I once listened to a gentleman scholar put it this way when a faculty of teachers at an independent school were debating the appropriateness of the teenagers in the school posting pin-ups (scantily clad or not) of famous people in their lockers. There was a healthy debate on many sides of the issue from simple privacy of space to the moral and social impact on the female students having to face the barrage of photos of women with body types that most would not obtain via a healthy lifestyle to the sexism of not allowing boys to post pictures of a scantily clad Tyra Banks in their lockers but allowing girls to post pages of the latest Abercrombie & Fitch, shirtless, male models. After much debate, this gentleman, who had said nothing throughout the entire debate, put is quite succinctly I thought, “I say, we let the students post any pictures they want as long as they are not degrading, abusive, explicit, etc. AND they are of people they actually know. The girls don’t know the A&F models, the boys don’t know Tyra Banks, so to them, these people are nothing but objects; and, in the end, it comes down to one simple question, is it right to treat people as objects or to allow kids to grow up thinking it is ok to treat people as objects?” I thought that was brilliant. So, wrestling with this topic in the film, as Bettie Page must do for herself—after all, she had to do something to become to known as ‘the notorious’—becomes one of the more relevant and uncomfortable aspects for viewers of the film.
Meanwhile, all the credit in the world has to go to Gretchen Mol who did an absolutely incredible job of portraying Bettie Page. It is difficult, actually, to recall any other actors in the film because, once she takes center stage, it’s very challenging to take your eyes off her for the rest of the movie. She has just exactly the right look, right character, right degree of naïveté. Her understanding of this character with her vulnerability yet forthright inner strength really brought her to life in an amazing way. Overall, I think there is much to be considered and learned from this film and the story of Bettie Page. Unfortunately, when it was over, I felt much like I did at the end of North Country—the story of the Minnesota women who fought the coal mining company over unfair treatment of women in the work place. I wanted true vindication and equality for the women involved. Unfortunately, our society in the USA is not yet prepared to go there completely. We still shy away from the notion of a female president, professional sports leagues for women, an equal number of women CEOs of Fortune® 500 companies, and on and on. Still, I think movies like this one need to be made to continue to remind us that our growth as a civilization eventually hinges on our willingness to evolve and distance ourselves from ancient, now useless paradigms and mindsets. Finally, it does make me happy to see this film was directed by a woman—there are also way too few women directing feature films these days! Mary Harron also did an extremely good job in bringing the life of Bettie Page to film. My only criticism would be that Bettie’s life outside the pin-up photo sessions was not well-illuminated. Her relationship with her boyfriend from acting class, Marvin (Jonathan Woodward) and the mysterious Arman in Miami, were relatively unexplored. I would have preferred a bit more on this and a little less of the photo shoots. The ending also left me a bit cold. Bettie’s sudden turn toward religion seemed out of the blue and plastic as if she had a twenty-second epiphany and then all was right in the world. There were some other loose ends such as what ever happened to the Playboy photo shoot, her real movie audition, and her stage audition? In fact, I guess it could be said the movie failed really to tell us what ever happened to Bettie Page in the end. Some tidying up was needed to be done for this movie to be a real winner. But, Gretchen Mol could go all the way!
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