Lady Sings the Blues

First off this is NOT a factual biography of Billie Holiday...a lot of her dark side is ignored. That aside, this is a pretty good movie. It follows Holiday from a little girl all the way up to her debut at Carnegie Hall. Along the way she deals with drug addiction, rape, prostitution etc etc. That's the big problem with the movie--it's too depressing. Holiday is a victim again and again and again. It wears one down seeing this woman just torn apart over and over. Also, the movie is too long--2 1/2 hours. Still, it's worth seeing for Diana Ross performance (Oscar-nominated). She sings like Holiday and (sometimes) looks like her. She never strikes a wrong note is her acting--she's letter perfect in every scene. So watch it for her and the music. Otherwise, it's pretty depressing. Also, there's a good supporting performance by Richard Pryor.

Diana Ross put in a very fine performance playing a very difficult role. Sadly, that role was not Billie Holiday and this is my big problem with this film. Any film with a musician as its subject should have loads of that musician's art. Diana Ross does sing some songs, but the MUSIC is not the focus of the film. The unhistoric life of Lady Day is: her experiences as a prostitute, her first gig, getting discovered, touring with a white band, Strange Fruit, etc. They are all thrown together into a hapless hodge-podge lacking continuity or even a semblance of a timeline. An even greater sin is that Lady Day did not develop in a vacuum as this film would have you believe. She was a vital part of the larger jazz scene of the 30s and 40s, a scene she shared on an equal footing with such giants as Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Lester Young, Johnny Hodges, Ben Webster, and most importantly John Hammond, the famous producer and talent scout who discovered Lady Day in a small Harlem club. None of these people appear in the film in any way, shape, or fashion. That's not just ridiculous, it's criminal. I don't know if there was a permissions problem in portraying them on film (some of them were still alive when the film was made), but their absence is sorely felt.

Amadeus is also criticized as unhistoric, which it is, but it made the best of Mozart's life by putting his music at center stage. (It also helps that the events it portrayed were in chronological order.) The same could have maybe rescued LADY SINGS THE BLUES, but the opportunity was missed. Other than Diana Ross's harrowing portrayal of a heroin addicted singer (who could have been anyone but Billie Holiday), there is nothing to recommend this movie. Go watch Ken Burns' JAZZ series instead.

Before watching this I knew that it wouldn't be factually correct. I knew that Diana Ross would sing in her own style without trying to imitate the real Billie Holiday. And I knew that this film was hated & protested by Billie's real life associates and family. I watched it anyway expecting to enjoy it the same way I enjoyed Amadeus even though it stepped all over the real Mozart. I mean, c'mon people, if we want history we should go to a library, not a movie theatre.

But with all that said I was still horribly put off by the lack of continuity with the spirit of Billie's life. For one thing, Diana's portrayal made Billie look like a blabbering halfwit. Even in the scenes where she's supposed to be stone cold sober she acts like a flake. If you've ever seen footage of the real Billie, you know that the real Lady was a tough, sharp, smart human being. You don't survive on the streets of New York by being an idiot the way she's shown to be in the film.

Next, the performances were shown totally out of context. For example, the song "My Man" is a chilling song about spousal abuse, but in the movie they gloss it up to be a feel-good homage to her guardian angel of a husband Louis McKay. In real life, Louis was as abusive as all of her husbands (hence the song "My Man"). This is just one example of the many incorrect interpretations this movie presents of Billie's music and her life.

OK, but like I said in my 1st paragraph, I can allow the director some poetic license if the movie is worthwhile. Unfortunately this movie didn't deliver. Instead of focusing on the true hardships and trials that plagued Ms. Holiday, we get a whole bunch of clichés about drug use, trying to make it in the business, and how you're supposed to be good to your friends. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be about Billie Holiday or if it was just an ABC afterschool special with clever packaging.

The acting was good (if you choose to accept the idea of Billie Holiday being a weak minded flake), and there were several dramatic moments that were well staged. But here's my biggest gripe: the musical score KILLED this movie! It's supposed to be a 1940s jazz biopic, so why are we getting 70s "star search" orchestrations? You know, like the cheezy swelling violins and pseudo-disco drums when Ed McMahon reads the winner of the competition. Talk about an anachronism, to say nothing of the way it cheapens some otherwise powerful moments.

Lastly, I have to say that fans of Billie's music will be pretty annoyed at Diana Ross's versions. They are two totally different singers. Billie sang in a lower register (except when hitting those high notes which she always did clean & clear WITHOUT vibrato) whereas Diana prefers theatrics in the upper register and doesn't go very low at all. This is really a movie for Diana Ross fans or for casual jazz listeners who have never heard of Billie Holiday. Like another reviewer suggested, if you're truly interested in Billie, you should buy some of her records or try to find some old films of her performances. Her music is the best biography you'll ever get.

I would be the first to agree that it was standard fare as far as a musical bio...and Cabaret was a superior film. But Diana Ross' performance was a stunning film debut. This is the kind of overlooked performance that makes it so clear that pure ability is not what the Academy Awards are all about. I tend to think really great acting always sneaks above the voting members scope of being able to truly reccognize great acting.

But anyone who hasn't seen Diana Ross' performance in Lady is in for a treat. To think that she went through so many transitions within the film: from youngster, to a drug addict, to a grand singer...it's a truly great performance.

The first question that would run across the mind of anyone who'd watch this movie is: "Can Diana Ross act?" The answer, I'm glad to say, is an unequivocal "Yes." And I think that's what the director wanted to clear up right from the very first scene, with a flash forward to Billie Holiday's drug bust while the credits were still on. Ms. Ross, devoid of make-up and with "crazy hair," put on an extremely convincing performance of heroin (or coke) withdrawal, replete with howling.

Her performance is the highlight of the movie, which unfortunately felt like it ran way too long, and I found myself constantly checking the run time. It wasn't bad as a musical. As I had read previously, Ms. Ross didn't seek to imitate Billie Holiday's style, and instead created a distinct and appropriate - yet similar - jazz style of her own just for the movie (check out "Good Morning Heartache"), and I, being a fan, didn't mind the song interludes.

What dragged the movie was the constant focus on Holiday's drug addiction (to showcase more of Ms. Ross's acting?). It felt like there was scene after scene of her being drug-addled, whining, and screaming, which began to abrade after a while. It's too bad, since with better direction and screenplay, coupled with Ms. Ross's capable acting and singing, this could've been one of the truly great musical biopics.