Billie

I don't know whether it's interesting or not that this intended writer of a bio on Billie - starting out just because she was a fan - like the rest of us - is white, Jewish woman but the amount of time this docu/biopic spends on the writer, who never completed the work before dying, is ridiculous and uninteresting. Way, Way too much screen time devoted to this other woman's life - which, when you've got footage and interviews of and about LADY DAY BILLIE HOLIDAY - it's mind-boggling to devote so much time on this one woman's attempts to write about Billie. Very odd style and underwhelming - which only left me desperately wanting to see and hear more of Billie and much less of this other distracting stuff. Badly done. R.I.P. TO THE LATE, GREAT BILLIE HOLIDAY.

Before seeing this documentary I knew little about Billie Holiday. She had a rough start in Philadelphia and Baltimore, including being sex trafficked by her prostitute mother. But she had a mesmerizing voice, while she could probably sing anything well she preformed more as a vocal stylist. And many of her songs were reflections of herself and her life. The documentary contains many vocal excerpts from interviews, including some by Holiday herself.

In many respects her life was mostly a tragedy, heavy into sex, drugs, and alcohol into her adulthood which ended when she was only 44. But she did have an indelible influence on her type of music.

On DVD from my public library, I watched it at home, my wife skipped.

I really enjoyed this film - lots of clips of Billie singing that I'd not seen before and many sympathetic interviews with other great musicians. Well worth watching whether you're a fan or new to the music of the woman who pretty much defined popular singing.

It's a documentary on the singer Billie Holiday based on research and oral interviews by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, who died in 1978 under mysterious circumstances, which meant she could not finish the book she was writing about Holiday.

I watched this movie because I was very disappointed when I watched "Lady Sings the Blues" (1972) starring Diana Ross playing Billie Holiday. The story told in that movie seemed to have a passing connection to reality, and much of it was pretty bad despite the praise Ross received for playing the role. Ross did not have the depth to play such a complex person.

This 90-minute documentary makes excellent use of Kuehl's audio interviews of musicians that worked with Holiday, friends from her early life, and people like one of the pimps from her early life as a prostitute. It was chilling to hear him laugh about prostitutes liking to be beaten up. Accompanying the interviews is a lot of Holiday music and film footage that matches well the interviews. The most striking musical piece for me was "Strange Fruit," which explicitly references victims of lynching as the "strange fruit."

In my mind, if you want to learn about the real Billie Holiday, this is the film to see.

Refreshingly direct and to the point, this documentary doesn't mince any words and pulls no punches. It's Billie's story right in your face and told by many who really knew her and who had no interest in propagating fantasy versions of Lady Day. The attention paid to the woman who did all the hard work to get these stories told is in no way disproportionate and we owe her a debt of gratitude. Respect!