Free Porn
Seen today in our porno-saturated culture, Page's "scandalous" photos seem positively demure.
The Notorious Bettie Page, director Mary Harron's (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) delectable Page biopic, is like a feminist revamping of Kinsey (both films share the same richly evocative atmosphere of '50s sexual/political repression) filtered through the innocent, good-natured sleaze of a vintage John Waters flick. Mott Hupfel's lustrous, black-and-white cinematography helps make Bettie Page a pitch-perfect facsimile of an actual 1950s movie.
"It's a treat to see a girl with so much spirit," shutterbug John Willie (Jared Harris, who played Andy Warhol in Harron's 1996 film) says sans irony to Page during their initial photo shoot. And it's precisely that can-do attitude — Page seems so clear-eyed and upbeat about her new career — that gives the film such an unexpected sunshiny radiance. Whether posing in full dominatrix garb or au natural for "nature" magazines, the dazzling, Pepsodent smile and positive energy remain undiminished. "It's just costumes; we're dressing up," Page insists about her more outre modeling jobs.
The folksy, funny workplace scenes with Mom and Pop pornographers Irving and Paula Klaw (Chris Baueur and Lili Taylor) are like something out of a Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney "let's-put-on-a-show" musical, and just as impossibly cheery. I seriously doubt whether the smut trade was ever this guileless and naive, but Gretchen Mol's incandescent portrayal of Page makes it easy to believe Harron's self-aggrandizing mythos. When Page's square-jawed boyfriend (Jonathan Woodward) expresses disgust at her kinky pictures, you can tell she's genuinely shocked by his reaction. The idea that anyone might find her harmless game of "dress-up" repugnant never entered her pretty little head. According to Harron and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner, the only reason Page didn't make it as a legitimate actress in New York or Hollywood was because of her modeling notoriety. You can take that editorial commentary with a grain of salt if you like.
The fact that Page herself becomes the target of a Senate investigation into porn brings an undercurrent of sadness to the movie's second half. As Senator Estes Kefauver, Page's chief nemesis, David Strathairn brings as much single-minded conviction to the weasely morals crusader as he did to his Oscar-nominated turn as Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck. By comparing porn to drug addiction — and claiming that it leads to "suicide, murder and psychosis" — Kefauver goes so over the top with his rants and accusations that he makes Joe McCarthy look like old Saint Nick by comparison. Page's 1958 "re-commitment" to Jesus is handled adroitly and without a trace of smugness or mockery on Harron's part. Yet there's something vaguely depressing about Page trading in her progressive sexual attitudes and healthy sexuality for the crutch of Sunday school Christianity. Maybe because it feels so creepily relevant in today's theocratic American society.
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The Notorious Bettie Page, director Mary Harron's (American Psycho, I Shot Andy Warhol) delectable Page biopic, is like a feminist revamping of Kinsey (both films share the same richly evocative atmosphere of '50s sexual/political repression) filtered through the innocent, good-natured sleaze of a vintage John Waters flick. Mott Hupfel's lustrous, black-and-white cinematography helps make Bettie Page a pitch-perfect facsimile of an actual 1950s movie.
"It's a treat to see a girl with so much spirit," shutterbug John Willie (Jared Harris, who played Andy Warhol in Harron's 1996 film) says sans irony to Page during their initial photo shoot. And it's precisely that can-do attitude — Page seems so clear-eyed and upbeat about her new career — that gives the film such an unexpected sunshiny radiance. Whether posing in full dominatrix garb or au natural for "nature" magazines, the dazzling, Pepsodent smile and positive energy remain undiminished. "It's just costumes; we're dressing up," Page insists about her more outre modeling jobs.
The folksy, funny workplace scenes with Mom and Pop pornographers Irving and Paula Klaw (Chris Baueur and Lili Taylor) are like something out of a Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney "let's-put-on-a-show" musical, and just as impossibly cheery. I seriously doubt whether the smut trade was ever this guileless and naive, but Gretchen Mol's incandescent portrayal of Page makes it easy to believe Harron's self-aggrandizing mythos. When Page's square-jawed boyfriend (Jonathan Woodward) expresses disgust at her kinky pictures, you can tell she's genuinely shocked by his reaction. The idea that anyone might find her harmless game of "dress-up" repugnant never entered her pretty little head. According to Harron and co-screenwriter Guinevere Turner, the only reason Page didn't make it as a legitimate actress in New York or Hollywood was because of her modeling notoriety. You can take that editorial commentary with a grain of salt if you like.
The fact that Page herself becomes the target of a Senate investigation into porn brings an undercurrent of sadness to the movie's second half. As Senator Estes Kefauver, Page's chief nemesis, David Strathairn brings as much single-minded conviction to the weasely morals crusader as he did to his Oscar-nominated turn as Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck. By comparing porn to drug addiction — and claiming that it leads to "suicide, murder and psychosis" — Kefauver goes so over the top with his rants and accusations that he makes Joe McCarthy look like old Saint Nick by comparison. Page's 1958 "re-commitment" to Jesus is handled adroitly and without a trace of smugness or mockery on Harron's part. Yet there's something vaguely depressing about Page trading in her progressive sexual attitudes and healthy sexuality for the crutch of Sunday school Christianity. Maybe because it feels so creepily relevant in today's theocratic American society.
This is cache, read story here