Movie Review: Lady Sings the Blues

The Lady Sings the Blues is a movie that is directed by Sidney J. Furie and features Diana Ross as the main character. Diana Ross plays Billie Holiday, a woman who has tried about everything before she finds herself in music. Before long, she is well liked in New York. However, at the same time, she is in another problem. She has started doing drugs. Unlike other movies, Lady sings the Blues is a different kind of Biopic that both communicates the love for music and the challenges that come with it while at the same time has a different storyline from other biopic movies.

The movie is about Billie Holiday. Billie has tried a series of other things before getting into music. While working as a cleaner in a brothel, she is raped and runs away to her mother. Her mother however gets her a job in a brothel where she works as a cleaner for sometime before finding the job too low paying and becomes a prostitute. Before long, she quits and auditions to become a showgirl. Eventually, she fails but gets a place in the nights show as a singer. Her career begins here at the night club.

She does not, however, become famous overnight. After beginning at the night club, her following continues to grow. She however does not get much of a following until she sings the song Strange Fruit. This song is about a lynching of a black man that Billie observes. This song got a good audience especially with white people. It is probable that the lynching incident was included in the movie to complement this song. It is at this point that a white audience is observed watching her songs. The audience also grew with time and she changed her venues for more well off and bigger venues to accommodate her bigger audience.

While the movie has a name that is based on the blues she sang, Billie was mostly a jazz musician. Her success in the blues is far lesser than those she had in jazz music. She concentrates more in jazz music and is seen to have both a better talent and connection to jazz music. It is probable that the name originates from her love for those blue music artists and the difficulty of finding women in the blues in the age of her music. Billie’s music still commands a central position in jazz music. Her blues have however somehow been removed from the industry.

As she becomes better in her music and acquires a bigger following, she gets introduced to drugs. Louis later quits drugs and leaves her in the system. She fails every attempt to quit drugs. She gets arrested after her mother dies and she considers quitting and joins a rehab. Later, when she is released, she returns into music after a short break, hoping for success in the industry. Unluckily, it never happens and things get worse with time.

Biopic movies have a nature of using biased information to attract an audience of fanatics of the individual. On the contrary, the movie, like Kooijman (2003) notes, the movie fails to do justice to the musical life of which Billie Holiday was a part”. Rather than draw a success story about Billie Holiday, the movie is about the negatives of the famous Billie Holiday. Inglis (2007) notes that biopic movies have been based on those messages that would attract a bigger audience, not based on the quality or content of the movie but based on the bias it comes with. Eventually, it happens that the majority of such movies end up being boring to the common movie lover who has no knowledge of the individuals being featured.

Again, the movie fails to follow the monotony of other biopic movies by taking a different ending. It does not go by the success ending form of ending. Instead, even after putting so much hope in the audience, Billie fails in pursuing her career as a musician. This form of a biopic is rather explorative and keeps the audience expecting to be surprise.

The choice of the actor is very well done. Unlike in other cases where the actors have been selected on the basis of their relationship to the musician, Diana Ross is selected on the basis of her suitability (Canby, 1972). While it would seem that Ross was incomparable to Billie Holiday, she displays a lot of talent and emotion as would be expected of Billie. What is more? She amazes a lot of the audience in regard to capabilities.

A lot of themes are discussed in the film. At one point, Billie sees the idea of performing with a white band as both abnormal and funny. When the idea is floated to her, she laughs it off before even considering that it could be a reality. Eventually, she gets to play with them in the hope of making it in the industry. It never happens even after they perform together. The drugs in her life destroy the success that seems eminent. Her future in music is also destroyed by the fact that most of the people she associates with are abusive to her and lead her deeper into the life of drugs and alcohol. Eventually, even her spirit gets coarser and her spirit gets down.

Drugs rip out the life of the main character. While the main character may be escaping certain situations in her life, it seems likely that she could get a better hold of her life if she were not using drugs. She, for example, gets into trouble with her conscience when she gives Piano her ring to pawn away in exchange for drugs. Piano Man gets killed later leaving her feeling guilty. She gets deeper into drugs. Later, she is rearrested for use of drugs.

After the incident, she sings the song “God Bless the Child”. This song is about the relationship between Billie and her mother. At some point during the argument, her mother points out “God bless the child that has her own”. The anger that results from this statement leads her to begin her song with this statement. To the plot, this song helps her to gain a lot of support. It helps her to garner the backing of her audience in seeking to get back her license. She is however rearrested shortly thereafter over possession of drugs hence ending the hopes of succeeding in music. She performs this song to a full house. Seemingly, her campaigns have convinced a bigger audience that she is a good musician and that she has quit drugs hence commanding a big following.

However, as Kooijman (2003) argues, the movie reduces Billie to a victim rather than showing a bit of each side. The movie does give enough credit to the musician. Moreover, the movie continues to depict the main character as a victim even after she starts using drug (Ebert, 1972)s. At this point, the movie should depict the main character as a threat to society. He drug use habits to the death of Piano Man. Instead, she is shown as the most affected by the murder.

One scene that is criticized is the scene of the lynching. When Billie watches a man being lynched, she gets emotional about it. This scene is seen as one full of melodrama. The scene is compared with an Indian lynching. It is also criticized for being full of racism. It is one scene that seems unnecessary for this movie. The movie could have done better without this scene. The scene also seems unacceptable especially in the current day and age. This is especially in regard to the vividness of the scene. It is emphasized like one that that contains an important message. Any message that it carries could have been carried by a less vivid depiction of the same or another scene.

In conclusion, the movie is a biopic of a Jazz musician known as Billie Holiday. The main character is very carefully selected. Ross departs from her usual form of music to the form sang by Billie. The movie depicts Billie as a victim of abuse in her society. She gets into drugs and fails terribly in her career. The departure from the usual form of biopics gives the movie a better standing. Luckily, it was created at a time when the movie industry was slowly accepting biopics as a form of movies.

References

Canby, V. (1972). Movie Review – Lady Sings the Blues – Screen: Billie Holiday:’Lady Sings the Blues’ Stars Diana Ross – NYTimes.com. New York Times. Retrieved 22 November 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B07E5DA113DEF34BC4152DFB6678389669EDE

Ebert, R. (1972). Lady Sings the Blues Movie Review (1972) | Roger Ebert. Rogerebert.com. Retrieved 22 November 2014, from http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/lady-sings-the-blues-1972

Lady Sings the Blues. (1972).

Inglis, Ian. 2007. “Popular Music History on Screen: The Pop/Rock Biopic.” Popular Music History 2 (1): 77–93.

Kooijman, Jaap. 2003. “Triumphant Black Pop Divas on the Wide Screen: Lady Sings the Blues and Tina: What’s Love Got to Do with It.” In Popular Music and Film, edited by Ian Inglis, pp. 178–93. London; New York: Wallflower