Bettie Page Reveals All

Nov 22 2013 R 1h 41m
Biography, Documentary

The world's greatest pin-up model and cult icon, Bettie Page, recounts the true story of how her free expression overcame government witch-hunts to help launch America's sexual revolution. When she saw the film The Notorious Bettie Page, produced by HBO in 2006, the main person concerned reacted unequivocally: “Lies! Lies!” In a long interview recorded shortly before her death, the woman who entered the collective unconscious as the ultimate pin-up gave her version of events to director Mark Mori. In a gravelly voice, Bettie Page tells her own story and lifts the veil on areas often hidden by images that have made so many men and women fantasize since the 1950s: her abused childhood, an eclipse that lasted forty years, her mental illness. Through testimonies and unpublished archives, this documentary brings back to life a body and a face endlessly declined before our eyes, just as Bettie wanted: “I would like people to remember me as I was in the photos.”

Plot

With a natural photogenic poise and a vivaciously innocent risqué flair, there never was a pinup model like Bettie Page. Through Page's own words and interviews with her closest associates, we explore her extraordinary life growing up in a troubled childhood until she found a wild career as the Queen of the Pin-up Girls. In doing so, Page would challenge the paranoid sexual repression of the 1950s with uncommon grace until she walked away at the peak of her career. We also follow her quiet troubled later years struggling with unhappy marriages and mental illness that threaten to consume her even as she found a higher faith. Despite those challenges, Page's popularity would rise again in a more accepting time to become a celebrated icon of fearless sexuality and beauty.

Written by

Douglas Miller

Directed by

Mark Mori

Production Countries

United States of America

Production Companies

Single Spark Pictures, Music Box Films

Languages

English

Awards

1 win

Scores
# of Votes
1,675
Average Rating
7 out of 10
Metascore
64
Popularity
NA