BEFORE: I'm already taking notes for the end of the year, when I'll break down all of my films into categories, and then hand out some imaginary awards. Hey, we don't know when the Emmys will be this fall, or even if they'll take place at all, and for that matter, who knows what kind of Oscar ceremony there will be next year, if there's no end soon to this actors strike. I know it's a long shot, but there could be an opportunity here, for the Honkies to really shine this year - but I realize that would be a bit problematic because my qualifying films aren't confined to one calendar year, I watch films from any year, mostly current, but I'll drop in an older one if it's something I've never seen AND it helps out with the linking.
Today's film is from 2021, but it only FEELS like it's a lot older because I've passed up several opportunities to watch this one, and therefore the anticipation has built up, and it feels a bit like it's been on my list for years like "Handsome" and "The Do-Deca-Pentathlon" were. Last week I watched films from 2011, 2012, 2017, 2019 and 2022, and today's film was released in 2021, as Natasha Lyonne carries over from "Handsome: A Netflix Mystery Movie".
THE PLOT: Follows Billie Holiday during her career as she is targeted by the Federal Department of Narcotics with an undercover sting operation led by black Agent Jimmy Fletcher, with whom she has a tumultuous affair.
AFTER: There's a lot to unpack here, and I have to admit that I really didn't know the first thing about Billie Holiday. The director of this film is Lee Daniels, who also directed "Precious" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler", which I think was either quite a coincidence that he directed a film named after him, or else once they titled the film that, really, who else were they going to hire? You couldn't have "Lee Daniels' The Butler" directed by, say, Ryan Coogler, because that would just confuse the audience. I kid, of course, because I think it's incredibly pretentious for a director to have his name not just above the title, but IN IT. Really? You couldn't just call it "The Butler", was that too boring or something? Look, even Orson Welles didn't call his film "Orson Welles' Citizen Kane", so many take him as an example and keep your name out of the title of the film, it just simply doesn't belong there. His other film was marketed for a while as "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire" which might even be more pretentious, having the title instructing everyone that that movie was based on a book which had a different name, and oh, here's the author's name in the title too, so deal with that. Can you imagine releasing a film with the title "Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind, based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell" and having to say that full title every time you talk or write about that movie? Give me a break.
AFTER: There's a lot to unpack here, and I have to admit that I really didn't know the first thing about Billie Holiday. The director of this film is Lee Daniels, who also directed "Precious" and "Lee Daniels' The Butler", which I think was either quite a coincidence that he directed a film named after him, or else once they titled the film that, really, who else were they going to hire? You couldn't have "Lee Daniels' The Butler" directed by, say, Ryan Coogler, because that would just confuse the audience. I kid, of course, because I think it's incredibly pretentious for a director to have his name not just above the title, but IN IT. Really? You couldn't just call it "The Butler", was that too boring or something? Look, even Orson Welles didn't call his film "Orson Welles' Citizen Kane", so many take him as an example and keep your name out of the title of the film, it just simply doesn't belong there. His other film was marketed for a while as "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire" which might even be more pretentious, having the title instructing everyone that that movie was based on a book which had a different name, and oh, here's the author's name in the title too, so deal with that. Can you imagine releasing a film with the title "Victor Fleming's Gone With the Wind, based on the novel by Margaret Mitchell" and having to say that full title every time you talk or write about that movie? Give me a break.
So this is ostensibly a bio-pic about Billie Holiday, but get ready for a bunch of social issues to get thrown into the mix, because we couldn't just have a movie about a great famous singer, we've got to thrown in all her personal drama and a bunch of things related to the African-American experience, like being hassled by the government, lynchings, civil rights and drug addiction. This is what's known as the "shovel effect", that's what we called it when we wrote essays in high school, to prove your point you had to bring up every possible argument that helped make your point, and shovel them all in there, so the teacher couldn't possibly deny your arguments were valid, because you piled on so much damn evidence.
Look, I'll admit there were problems between the races back in the 1940's and 1950's, that's a given. And lynchings were still happening in the South, because conservative white just didn't give up easily, for sure. But did the U.S. government really go so crazy nuts over the fact that one jazz singer was getting famous for a song that might have been about how lynchings were bad? If you believe this film, the feds did three times more to stop the song from being performed than they ever did to, you know, stop the lynchings. Maybe that's true and maybe that's the point, I don't know. But there are apparently jazz historians who say that there's no evidence that Holiday was ever prevented from singing "Strange Fruit" by armed policemen. Yes, she was arrested for drug possession by the Bureau of Narcotics - but suggesting there was a conspiracy to arrest her for that JUST to get that song out of the public consciousness, that's a bit harder to believe. It could be that the director is drawing connective lines between things in the world that just weren't connected to begin with.
I'm going to table my research on this, and add a documentary about Billie Holiday to my list - I'll get to that next year if it happens to link up to the other docs I have planned. Thematically, it would fit right in, because according to this movie, Ms. Holiday enjoyed the company of both men and women, including actress Tallulah Bankhead. But of course I have no firsthand knowledge of that, so more research is required. I scanned quickly through the "Call Me Kate" documentary about Katherine Hepburn, and it seems she wasn't that into women (or was she?) and hey, at one point didn't Freddie Mercury have a girlfriend, wasn't Elton John married to a woman? (Sure, it was for like a day and a half, but it still happened...). Anyway, I'll straighten this all out (bad choice of words, sorry) next June with a bunch of docs during Pride Month and we'll get to the bottom of this (sorry, did it again.)
But this story is somehow still relevant because of the censorship issue, and the last time I checked we still live in a country that allows protesting and free speech (enjoy it...while it lasts). In the later instances of the U.S. government trying to shut down musicians, generally speaking, the musicians usually win, because the censorship tends to bring even MORE publicity to the music, and then more people find out about it, they dig it, they buy the records and the artist makes more money, then goes on tour and buys a bigger mansion. Can you imagine J. Edgar Hoover trying to shut down the anti-war songs of the 1960's, like "Eve of Destruction" or "For What It's Worth" or 'Blowin' in the Wind" or "Give Peace a Chance"? OK, maybe John Lennon did get into a bit of trouble for that last one, there was a whole documentary about that as well.
But is it worth sending an FBI agent to go work for Billie, befriend her and then set her up for drug possession, and to do this not once, but TWICE? Seems like a waste of two whole agents, who could have been doing a whole lot of anything else. According to this, Jerry Fletcher was working the long con, by going out of his way to meet Billie Holiday as a FAN, to gain her trust, and then he goes to see her again in prison, and after she gets released, he goes out on tour with her and they fall in love? Seems all a bit far-fetched, like didn't she know by then he was working for the feds, and she fell in love with him anyway? Besides, I thought she liked women, so, umm, which is it? Everything just seems inconsistent and unfocused here, which overall makes it a bit hard to believe.
Anyway, it was a full eight years between when she first recorded "Strange Fruit" and when she was arrested for narcotics possession, and the movie doesn't quite make that clear. But man, that's a long game being played by the Feds, right there, assuming this is all true. Wouldn't the FBI act a little faster that that, don't ya figure, if they really wanted to get rid of somebody, or to get here to stop performing? It just seems like a very inefficient use of their time. Just saying.
Also, NITPICK POINT, it wasn't necessarily the government that made sure Holiday lost her NYC Cabaret Card, which was a license for performers to appear on stage in city clubs and lounges. It seems like this was an automatic ruling against her, New York would simply not issue a Cabaret Card to someone who had a conviction for drug possession. No real conspiracy there, just a city agency following its own rules, which everyone at the time knew about. She could still perform in theaters and concert halls, so after she got out of prison she got her revenge by doing a sold-out show at Carnegie Hall (where she sang "Strange Fruit" with no interruptions or interference) and then she got the final word by continuing to have relationships with abusive men and dying of cirrhosis ten years later. NOT a drug overdose, OK? She might have been a heroin addict, but she was an even bigger alcoholic, apparently. Or was that just because drinking was legal and therefore easier to do?
BTW, there's nothing in Holiday's Wiki bio about relationships with women, but based on all the abusive men in her life, honestly I could see how they would be seen as an upgrade. Still, I can't help but wonder if this is just wish fulfillment among modern-day liberal biographers who are looking to add more people to their list of gay celebrities from the past. I mean, sure, we all know that sort of thing went down (whoops, bad choice of words again) but back then people kept it private. But you can't claim them as gay after the fact if there's no evidence to support it. Perhaps I'll get some more understanding when I watch a documentary, not a bio-pic.
Another NITPICK POINT: The incident at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City, where she was told she had to use the service elevator because of her race, happened way back in 1938 when she was singing for Artie Shaw's band. (Jeez, I would have thought NYC was more liberal even then, but apparently not.) But the film shows this taking place in 1947, when she's with Tallulah Bankhead. Yeah, I don't support the fiddling around with the historical timeline when it comes to things like this - maybe a lot changed during World War II because of black soldiers serving, and maybe by 1947 the rules were a little different in New York, so this kind of sells a whole city short, in my opinion.
Also starring Andra Day (last seen in "Marshall"), Trevante Rhodes (last seen in "Bird Box"), Garrett Hedlund (last seen in "Mudbound"), Miss Lawrence, Rob Morgan (last seen in "Don't Look Up"), Da'Vine Joy Randolph (last heard in "The Guilty"), Evan Ross (last seen in "Jeff, Who Lives at Home"), Tyler James Williams, Tone Bell, Erik LaRay Harvey (last seen in "Can You Ever Forgive Me?"), Melvin Gregg (last seen in "The Way Back"), Dana Gourrier (last seen in "The Whole Truth"), Leslie Jordan (last seen in "The Help"), Dusan Dukic (last seen in "The Smurfs 2"), Koumba Ball (last seen in "Mother!"), Adriane Lenox (last seen in "Bruised"), Letitia Brookes (last seen in "Fatherhood"), Warren "Slim" Williams, Jeff Corbett (last seen in "The Little Things"), Damian Joseph Quinn, Robert Alan Beuth (last seen in "The Story of Us"), Randy Davison (last seen in "Top Gun: Maverick"), Kevin Hanchard (last seen in "Born to Be Blue"), Jono Townsend, Morgan Moore, Ray Shell (last seen in "Velvet Goldmine"), Arlen John Bonner, Furly Mac (last seen in "Death Wish"), Blake DeLong (last seen in "A Quiet Place Part II"), Andrew Zadel, Tristan D. Lalla (last seen in "Long Shot"), Don Anderson, Amanda Strawn, Charleine Charles, Sylvia Stewart, Alain Goulem (last seen in "Pawn Sacrifice"), Ramona Clyke, Alika Autran, Jonathan Higgins (last seen in "Undercover Grandpa"), Taryn Brown, Joe Cobden (last seen in "On the Basis of Sex"), Ronda Louis-Jeune, Karl Graboshas (last seen in "The Hummingbird Project"), Yvanna-Rose Leblanc (last seen in "Race"), with archive footage of John F. Kennedy (last seen in "Apollo 10 1/2: A Space Age Childhood")
RATING: 5 out of 10 backstage visits
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