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| Lee Daniels: The United States vs. Billie Holiday (US 2021) starring Andra Day. |
The United States vs. Billie Holiday / The United States vs. Billie Holiday.
US 2021 © 2020 Billie Holiday Film. Hulu Presents – a Hulu original – in association with New Slate Ventures. P: Lee Daniels, Jordan Fudge, Joe Roth, Jeff Kirschenbaum, Pamela Oas Williams, Tucker Tooley. A Lee Daniels Film. A Lee Daniels Entertainment Production. A Roth-Kirschenbaum Films Production.
D: Lee Daniels. SC: Suzan-Lori Parks – based on the book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs (2015) by Johann Hari. DP: Andrew Dunn – negative: 35 mm, some scenes 16 mm – master format: 4K – release format: D-Cinema. PD: Daniel T. Dorrance. AD: Félix Larivière-Charron. Set dec: Geneviève Bolvin, Elise de Blois. Cost: Paolo Nieddu.
[M: Billie Holiday, n.c.]. M: Kris Bowers. Executive M producer: Salaam Remi. Executive M producer for Unigram: Amanda Ghost. M supervisor: Lynn Fainchtein.
Soundtrack listing: beyond the jump break.
S: Robert Hein. ED: Jay Rabinowitz.
CAST from Wikipedia:
Andra Day as Billie Holiday
Trevante Rhodes as Jimmy Fletcher
Garrett Hedlund as Harry J. Anslinger
Leslie Jordan as Reginald Lord Devine
Miss Lawrence as Miss Freddy
Adriane Lenox as Mrs. Fletcher
Natasha Lyonne as Tallulah Bankhead
Rob Morgan as Louis McKay
Da'Vine Joy Randolph as Roslyn
Evan Ross as Sam Williams
Tyler James Williams as Lester Young
Tone Bell as John Levy
Blake DeLong as Agent Carter
Dana Gourrier as Sadie Fagan
Melvin Gregg as Joe Guy
Erik LaRay Harvey as Monroe
Ray Shell as Carl the Drummer
130 min
US release: 26 Feb 2021 (Hulu).
Finnish release: 2 July 2021 (theatrical) by Finnkino with Finnish / Swedish subtitles by Jaana Wiik / Charlotte Elo.
Corona security: max 10 capacity, face masks, distancing, hand hygiene.
Viewed at a press screening at Tennispalatsi 3, Helsinki, 2 June 2021.
AA: Cinemas in Helsinki are still suffering from the regional lockdown restriction of max 10 capacity, and they are all closed save a few intrepid independents such as Kino Engel. Last weekend cinemas in Lappeenranta opened for a capacity of 20, and on 4 June they open for full capacity. Finnkino theatres in all of Finland will be open by 11 June, in Helsinki for what seems like max 10 capacity but might turn out to be higher.
During the lockdown, I have been very grateful for press screenings.
I admire the high quality of movie access online. I have no complaints. But more than ever I have realized the superiority of the movie experience in a cinema. I have traditionally shunned press screenings because the audience experience in them is so twisted. Nobody laughs if the film is a comedy or if the scene is humoristic, etc. The worst are gala screenings in the presence of film-makers. I am instantly tuned into a mood of courtesy and cannot sincerely assess the movie because I root so much for the film-makers whose hard work I respect. Regarding Aki Kaurismäki's The Other Side of Hope I remember the icy atmosphere at the gala premiere and the warm flow the day after at Cinema Orion when we screened a 35 mm print for a dedicated audience at Cinema Orion. It was a different film.
During the pandemic I have savoured press screenings. The warmth, the reactions, the atmosphere, the laughter and the pheromones of the audience are gone. Films are often about sex and violence, they bypass reason and reach our unconscious, even our "reptilian brain", unleashing a potent hormone cocktail into the atmosphere of the cinema. None of that this time. But during the pandemic the safety and the distancing of the cinemas have been very relaxing, whether in Helsinki, Lappeenranta or Bologna.
Watching The United States vs. Billie Holiday in a press screening for max ten viewers is a more meditative experience than a normal cinema screening would be. This is a movie about sex and violence. This is a movie about drugs and jazz. This is a political film about racism, repression and fighting for your rights. The subject is potentially scandalous and sensational, but although the film is highly charged and passionate, it is tempered by intelligence. It is a film of outrage, but the main thrust is to make us think.
It is a top production, independently financed outside the mainstream. The strong screenplay by Suzan-Lori Parks was inspired by Johann Hari's non-fiction book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, its chapters on the film's two protagonists: Billie Holiday and Harry J. Anslinger, First Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN).
The saga of Billie Holiday could easily fall into the "rise and fall" formula of artist biopics. But Johann Hari and Suzan-Lori Parks select an unusual angle into the theme of drug addiction: "the War on Drugs" as a key instrument in racist oppression and violence. Black artists seek solace from drugs to alleviate pain from racist violence. But drug addiction exposes them to a circle of crime and punishment. They become extra vulnerable to the structural violence of the society.
Although Billie Holiday was dealt an abysmally bad hand, she rose to superstardom and created one of the most recognizable idioms in 20th century culture. More than that, she did not compromise, and became a pioneer of the civil rights movement by singing her signature song "Strange Fruit" about lynching.
The key dynamics in The United States vs. Billie Holiday is about the singer's defiant civil rights stance and the government's war on Billie Holiday. It is not a surprise that the FBI and the FBN are after her, but, shockingly, they manage to infiltrate Holiday's nearest and dearest to try to suppress her and even plant drugs on her. They succeed with her husbands and managers, but when they send a double agent, Jimmy Fletcher, he switches sides. The drama is like from a paranoid Hollywood thriller but seems to be true.
The thrust of the film is that government agencies killed Billie Holiday, at least indirectly, but perhaps even directly. And this happened with the connivance of Holiday's inner circle. I'll be intrigued to learn more.
The movie is a tragedy but belongs to the lineage of Joe Hill: "I never died" says he. Those who harass Billie Holiday to death make her immortal. Her last lines in the movie are directed to Harry J. Anslinger:
" You think I'm going to stop singing that song. Your grandkids will be singing Strange Fruit. Y'all motherfuckers think you got something on me. You don't. You stupid bitches ain't got shit. Suck my black ass. "
This is a top production. The glamorous dresses are by Paolo Nieddu in collaboration with the House of Prada, the hairdos by Stacie Merriman and Charles Gregory Ross, and the makeup by Laini Thompson.
The cinematographer Andrew Dunn shoots on photochemical film, helping sustain a vibrant, physical feeling even in digital transfer.
The producer-director Lee Daniels succeeds in conveying an original vision of the legendary singer, different from Lady Sings the Blues (starring Diana Ross) and the recent portrait documentary Billie. He brings the bold screenplay to life uncompromisingly.
One of the hallmarks of Suzan-Lori Parks's screenplay is that it is structured intelligently around Billie Holiday's songs. Lee Daniels's major coup is casting the superb singer Andra Day in the leading role, followed by the decision of having her sing all the songs herself. (A similar decision was made in Lady Sings the Blues where Diana Ross interpreted the Billie Holiday songbook).
This is Andra Day's debut as an actor, and she is breathtaking in the extremely demanding part, completely different from her own persona. She is a fighter, an artist, outraged and outrageous, engrossing as a star presence. This movie becomes an Andra Day vehicle. She embodies the concept of "the triumph of the spirit" in tribute to Billie Holiday.
We don't hear Billie Holiday in this movie. For a while in the final song "All Of Me" I thought it was her but evidently I misunderstood.
A curious observation in the main credits of the Billie Holiday movies: the music credit in Lady Sings the Blues goes to Michel Legrand, in Billie to nobody, and in this one to Kris Bowers. In none is Billie Holiday credited for the music, except in soundtrack details.
The United States vs. Billie Holiday is a film of high quality. The traumatic scene in which the young Billie Holiday witnesses a scene of lynching is conveyed powerfully in a shared opium delirium by Billie with the double-agent-turned-lover Jimmy. Scenes of prostitution, domestic violence and police brutality are unvarnished and uncliched. On the other hand, Billie's atavistic and exceptional sex drive is memorably shown as a force of life. Frank sex scenes in movies almost invariably fail. Not here.
Perhaps to avoid sensationalism, Lee Daniels occasionally adopts a laid back approach, like putting on the break time and again. As a rule, the scenes with Billie Holiday are exciting and full of life. The FBN scenes are less convincing, which is a pity. They are built on the disturbing concept that the first Black Federal agents in the history of the US were assigned to infiltrate and betray fellow Blacks in the "War on Drugs". It gradually dawns on them that it is a codename for a war on Blacks.
The shared opium delirium in the heart of the narrative contains the unhealed trauma of Billie's memory of lynching. Another striking framing device is a radio interview session by the journalist Reginald Lord Devine played by Leslie Jordan in one of the most memorable non-binary performances in contemporary cinema. The twist is that he/she is just as clueless about Billie Holiday as everybody else.
SOUNDTRACK LISTING FROM THE IMDB BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK:
Soundtrack Credits
Prologue I & II
Written, Produced and Performed by Salaam Remi
All of Me
Written by Seymour Simons and Gerald Marks
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Sax Audition
Written and Performed by Patience Higgins
Courtesy of The Jazz Foundation of America
Todo sobre mi madre
Written and Conducted by Alberto Iglesias
Courtesy of El Deseo
Solitude
Written by Duke Ellington, Irving Mills and Edgar De Lange (as Edward DeLange)
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Billie's Waltz
Written by Mario Grigorov
Strange Fruit
Written by Lewis Allan (as Allan Lewis)
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Tigress & Tweed (1950s Vocal Version)
Written by Raphael Saadiq and Andra Day
Produced by Dave Wood and Andra Day
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records/Buskin Records
Break Your Fall
Written by Oak Felder (as Warren Okay Felder) and Sebastian Kole (as Coleridge Tillman)
Produced by Oak Felder for Go! Music/The Orphanage
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records/Buskin Records
I Cried for You
Written by Gus Arnheim, Arthur Freed and Abe Lyman
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Gym
Written and Performed by Camilo Froideval
T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness
Written by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Hallelujah I Love Her So
Written and Performed by Ray Charles
Courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corporation
By arrangement with Warner Music Group Film & TV Licensing
Them There Eyes
Written by Maceo Pinkard, William Tracey and Doris Tauber
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
(I've Got a Girl in) Kalamazoo
Written by Mack Gordon and Harry Warren
Performed by Glenn Miller Orchestra (as The Glenn Miller Orchestra)
Courtesy of Hindsight Records
Lady Sings the Blues
Written by Billie Holiday and Herbie Nichols
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Lover Man
Written by Roger Ramirez (as Roger J. Ram Ramirez), Jimmy Davis (as James Edward Jimmy Davis) and Jimmy Sherman
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Precious Memories
Written and Performed by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Courtesy of Savoy Records, a Division of Malaco Music Group
Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer
Written by Wesley Wilson (as Wesley A. Wilson)
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Dressing Room Blues
Written and Performed by Warren 'Slim' Williams (as Slim Williams), Miss Lawrence and Morgan Moore
The Devil and I Got Up to Dance a Slow Dance
Written by Jamie Hartman, Oak Felder (as Warren Oak Felder), Sebastian Kole (as Coleridge Tillman) and Charlie Wilson
Produced by Oak Felder for Go! Music/The Orphanage
Performed by Charlie Wilson
By courtesy of Warner Records
T'Ain't Nobody's Bizness
Written by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins
Performed by Bessie Smith
Courtesy of Artist Alliance, through Licensemusic.com APS
The Devil and I (Reprise)
Written by Jamie Hartman, Oak Felder (as Warren Oak Felder), Sebastian Kole (as Coleridge Tillman) and Charlie Wilson
Produced by Oak Felder for Go! Music/The Orphanage
Performed by Charlie Wilson
By courtesy of Warner Records
Struttin' with Some Barbecue
Written by Lil Armstrong (as Lillian Hardin Amstrong) and Don Raye
Performed by Louis Armstrong
Courtesy of Verve Records, under exclusive license from Unviersal Music Canada Inc.
God Bless the Child
Written by Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.
Produced by Salaam Remi
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records
Cain't No Grave Hold My Body Down
Written and Performed by Sister Rosetta Tharpe
Courtesy of Universal Music Canada Inc.
Epilogue
Written, Produced and Performed by Salaam Remi
Tigress & Tweed
Written by Raphael Saadiq and Andra Day
Produced by Raphael Saadiq and Andra Day
Performed by Andra Day
Courtesy of Warner Records/Buskin Records
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