G.THE UNITED STATES AGAINST BILLIE HOLIDAY
Type: Political-scandal biography
Directed by Lee Daniels. Starring Andra Day, Trevante Rhodes, Garrett Hedlund, Natasha Lyonne, Leslie Jordan, Miss Lawrence, Da’Vine Joy Randolph
You have to get over it. The evolution of cinema on the long wave of serial competition has led to privilege content over form. Stories to effect (and scenes to effect) win over everything, even the heartbreaking voice of Billie Holiday.
Andra Day as Billie Holiday in Lee Daniels’ film (photo by Takashi Seida / Paramount Pictures Corporation).
It is what happens in this film that he would like to recount the obsessive persecution that the head of the FBI narcotics office carried out against “Lady Day“, Notorious heroin user. In the name of some drug crusade? No, to keep her from singing Strange Fruitthe song about black lynchings which according to the white power incited rebellion.
It is one of the many shameful pages of American racism which in the film ends up being almost a pretext to show the blacker side of the singer, starting with her toxic relationships with men.
Andra Day in the movie “The United States vs. Billie Holiday” (photo by Takashi Seida / Paramount Pictures Corporation).
When Andra Day (film debut, but established singer) plays Billie Holiday you are speechless so much it seems to hear the original, but when the direction flutters back and forth, spying through the keyhole at the woman’s weaknesses, you wonder if the denunciation of racism is not a pretext for the usual desecration to effect.
For those who have never forgotten Billie Holiday.
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