Mary Harron's biopic of 1950s pin-up and fetish queen Bettie Page is one of those films that poses a challenge to the critic: there's something that just doesn't feel right about it, but what?
It's not the direction which, while largely classical in style, fits the 1950s mood. Neither is it the performances, with Gretchen Mol impeccable as Page and the likes of Lily Taylor (as bondage photographer Irving Klaw's pragmatic sister, Paula), Jared Harris (as boozy fetish artist John Willie) and David Straithairn (as crusading anti-smut senator Estes Kefauver) providing excellent support. Nor is it the technical qualities, with cinematography, production design and costuming together creating a solid sense of time and place.
Looking for flaws in any of these, we're at level of such trainspotterish detail as pointing to a 3D camera that's shown being used in a vertical rather than a horizontal position, whereby the 3D wouldn't work.
In the end I think it comes down to the fact that Page doesn't quite function as the kind of feminist or queer figure that Harron and her co-writer Guinevere Turner would like her to be. In this the contrast with Valerie Solanas of Harron's earlier I Shot Andy Warhol is telling: whereas Solanas had an explicit (wo)manifesto but failed to have any real impact except beyond that of her bullets on an artist whose studied ironic detachment vanished for once as he failed to appreciate her actions as a kind of Dadaist performance, Page irrevocably altered the sexual contours of American society largely as unanticipated consequence.
Moreover, in that she found God and gave up modelling – though the chronology and direction of influence is moot – there might also be the question of whether she thinks the developments of the past half century have been for the better is another matter. We're not necessarily talking extreme bondage material here either: while today's Page might well appreciate the affectionate tribute of Dita Von Teese in emulating her look, what would Jesus tell her to say about the satanic posturings of Mr Von Teese, otherwise known as Marilyn Manson?
Perhaps the key issue is that Page is a representative of a more innocent, naïve era who is difficult for today's post-modern, post-feminist filmmakers and audience to understand, past as a different country and all that: whereas Von Teese approaches her fetish work with a detached irony, placing it within quotes, this would seem largely alien to the straightforward, what-you-see-is-what-you-(don't)-get Page, with her unshakable belief that whatever happened in here life – and to their credit, the filmmakers show it all – it was all part of the divine plan.
Yet, in another way perhaps Page does function as the sort of figure the filmmakers want, even if they and she would probably have to agree to disagree were they ever to meet (a situation that Page's retreat into seclusion, preferring that her fans remember her as she was, makes unlikely). For Page's Christianity is of a forgiving and inclusive it-takes-all-sorts sort and as such is a far cry from many of today's fundamentalist religious right types to whom they are presumably most opposed. And, let's face it, we who aren't part of this elect need to forget our differences and unite for a change…
To sum up: yes, this is a contradictory review – but of a contradictory film about a contradictory figure. If the question is whether the film will entertain, then the answer is yes; it's worth a look.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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