Underplayed Gems

Billie (2019)

Billie poster
Directed by
James Erskine
Genre
documentary film, musical film, biographical film
Country
United Kingdom
Runtime
1h 38m
Rated
12
Rating
6.8 of 10 from 23 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
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How it feels

This documentary tells the story of jazz singer Billie Holiday through old audio interviews from the 1970s. It also follows the journey of the researcher who collected those interviews for a book she never finished.

archivalintimatereflectivecontemplativesomberobsessivefragmentedmusical

What happens

Billie is a 2019 documentary film about Billie Holiday, written and directed by British filmmaker James Erskine. The film is based around interviews recorded on audio cassettes through the 1970s by Linda Lipnack Kuehl, researching a book on Holiday that was never completed because of Kuehl's death in 1978: her body was found on a Washington D.C. street, and she was deemed to have died by suicide, although that supposition is disputed by her family. Erskine's documentary "is about both Holiday — as told through the voices of people who knew her — and Kuehl's obsession with crafting her biography." Kuehl's interviews were with friends, family members, band members, peers from 1930s Harlem, piano players, psychiatrists and a pimp. Prominent figures from the jazz world who contributed recollections include Count Basie, Charles Mingus, Jo Jones and Sylvia Syms. The film premiered at the Telluride Film Festival in September 2019. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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