The Notorious Bettie Page vs Shadow Of The Vampire

Bettie Page was sort of like Marilyn Monroe, I suppose, if Marilyn had never started acting. Bettie just existed in photographs (and a few silent, mildly raunchy stag reels). If you aren’t familiar with the name, you definitely will recognize Bettie’s image: the black bangs, the sneer, the bondage get-ups. (You’re on Google right now, aren’t you? Tell Bettie I said hi.) It’s likely that few of her fans ever heard her speak or learned anything about her private life, which is part of the appeal. Unlike Marilyn, who became much more clearly defined, Bettie Page existed primarily in the dirty mind of the beholder. But now, she has a movie, The Notorious Bettie Page, to fill in the blanks.  If you’re expecting the decadent life of the dominatrix depicted in Bettie’s photo spreads, you’ll be surprised and possibly disappointed to learn that Bettie Page, at least the version depicted in The Notorious Bettie Page, lived a life that was mostly pleases, thank-yous, and heartfelt handshakes. Remember when you saw Truth or Dare and found out that Madonna really was kind of awful? That she was selfish and greedy and vulgar? I thought it was a relief. Sometimes you want the public image to match the reality. Bettie Page was the opposite. Her work made her appear sexual and dangerous, but in truth she was a sweet lady without a perverted bone in her body. Damn.

Bettie Page was raised in Tennessee, a sweet, smart, God-fearing girl. We learn that she was sexually abused on more than one occasion (once as an adult in a seriously creepy and awkward scene), so it might appear that Bettie’s career as a corset-wearing model with a whip might be the result. Maybe Bettie acted out these roles of domination as a way of turning the patriarchy on its ear. Maybe she secretly got off on the scenarios, and was as into the BDSM subculture as the thousands of men who special-ordered photos of Bettie teetering on platform boots, smacking a tied-up sorority girl with a riding crop. Or maybe she was pretty enough to be a model, and gave a gracious and naïve thumbs up to any suggestion the photographer gave her. Growl and claw at the camera like a tiger? Well golly, okay. Bettie was very religious, so I assume part of her motivation could be that the body is a temple, and if it happens to be hot, well you might as well show it. And spank it. And maybe tether it between two trees. Not that you’d ever guess that (or anything) by watching the movie.

The reason to see The Notorious Bettie Page—and this has never been a reason to see a movie before—is the luminous Gretchen Mol. Mol has been around for a while, but this is her coming out. Besides being a dead-ringer for Page (her black wig and 1950s attire never look like costumes), Mol speaks in a fetching blend of 1950s TV housewife and Tennessee farm girl. She’s like Annette Funicello directed by Russ Meyer. Mol brings depth to scenes I’m not sure have it on paper; Bettie takes acting classes, and is often put on the spot with no pay-off. Also, she dates one of her classmates—maybe she even marries him?—but we learn frustratingly little about him. Mol creates a Page that remains well-rounded and interesting even when the film forgets about her. She just sort of arrives places, without us knowing where she’s been. And on more than one occasion Bettie is given suggestions like “You should go to Florida” and then in the next scene, that’s where she is. Everything that happened to Bettie Page in her life was in the simplest of situations. Can I take your picture? S ure. Wanna date? Okay. Wear this. Sure. The most telling moment in The Notorious Bettie Page is during an indecency hearing. Bettie is called to testify, sits out in the lobby for twelve hours, and then is sent home without even being asked any questions. Riveting.

I guess part of the blame falls on director Mary Harron. The Notorious Bettie Page is filmed like a 1950s beach movie, which isn’t a bad idea (Ed Wood benefited greatly from being filmed like an old B-movie), but putting such a sunny gleam on stag films and soft-core bondage pictures is an irony I can handle for about twenty minutes. After that, if you’re going to spoof the fifties, do it. If you’re going to bring the smut, do that. And the film disruptively switches from color to black-and-white and back again, with no logic I could find (most of the color scenes are in Florida, but she’s just posing for more naked pictures there, so I’m not sure why it’s so much more colorful). Bettie Page was hot, photogenic, sweet and intelligent. I’m not positive she’s worth devoting an entire film to, but for Mol’s lush and sly performance, this one was ultimately worth it.

That’s the problem with celebrities: sometimes they really are just like the rest of us, by which I mean, you know, boring. Well, not you. You’re great. But the others. And movies are expensive, right? So you have to make sure and hold our interest. Feel free to make shit up.

I think a great companion (and antidote) to The Notorious Bettie Page is Shadow of the Vampire. Like Gods and Monsters, Shadow of the Vampire imagines a fictional scenario around which the filming of a grand classic horror movie took place. And while Gods and Monsters is the superior of the two films, Shadow of the Vampire is the more original and unsettling, because it posits the idea that the original vampire film, Nosferatu, just might have been more fact than fiction. John Malkovich is the director of the film, and has cast an actual vampire (Willem Dafoe) in the leading role. In exchange for his creepy performance, the vampire has been promised his leading lady, or at least a script girl.

Shadow of the Vampire is all of the dark, decadent fun you might expect from The Notorious Bettie Page, plus it’s downright gruesome. Willem Dafoe has the task of playing about a half-dozen roles at once (he’s got to recreate the classic images from the original film, plus the odd farcical moments between his character and Malkovich’s, and then he’s got to be a disgusting, rat-like vampire. He excels at each). Visually, it’s impeccable, with the original film influencing every frame of its tribute. Shadow of the Vampire was written by Steven Katz, and directed by E. Elias Merhige, who has such a clear idea of what kind of movie he’s making (Shadow of the Vampire is at once a B-movie, a tribute to B-movies, and an arch art-film that dips into the B-movie element with the utmost of irony), that I’m pretty sure he could convince me that every word of it’s true. I’m not saying it’s better to lie, but I wouldn’t see the harm in letting Katz and Merhige throw together a racier backstory for Bettie Page. I bet they could find a naughty sorority in there somewhere, and a Bettie Page more in charge of her own destiny.

The Notorious Bettie Page: C+
Shadow of the Vampire: B+