Documentary director Mark Mori is both an Academy Award nominee (for
1991's
Building Bombs) and an Emmy winner (for 2000's
Kent
State: The Day the War Came Home). In 2012 he made
Bettie Page Reveals All, a documentary about the famed pinup star which
featured narration by Bettie herself, culled from hours of audio interviews
Mori conducted with the erstwhile glamour star before her death in 2008.
Blu-ray.com staff reviewer Jeffrey Kauffman interviewed Mori about his
interest in Page and the making of the documentary.
Bettie Page Reveals All streets on April 22 from Music Box Films.
Tell me how you first got interested in Bettie Page.
I was having lunch with my entertainment attorney in LA in 1996. He had a
pre-publication copy of the book
Bettie Page: The Life of a Pinup
Legend, and he showed it to me. I certainly recognized her, I mean
her image is ubiquitous, but I had never really connected a name to the
image.
So was it this attorney who got you in touch with Bettie? Did he know
her?
No,
he didn't know her, but he knew another attorney who was
representing part of Bettie's business interests and that attorney
introduced me to her.
Where was she living?
She was on the outskirts of L.A. in a halfway house where she had been
remanded after her release from Patton State.
Right, I want to get into her institutionalization in a moment. I've spent
much of my film scholarship life researching another woman who was a big
star, got institutionalized, and then disappeared mysteriously for years
before having a late life resurgence—Frances Farmer, so I'm really
interested in that aspect of Bettie's life. But first I'd like to know, did you
have the idea for a documentary as soon as you saw the book? Or did that
concept have to foment for a while?
No, I knew right away. The book had her whole life laid out and had tons
of pictures, and I just knew instantly that Bettie would make a great
subject of a documentary. I could just see from the images how visual a
documentary could be, and I also knew that her story had never been told
that way before, so all the pieces just seemed to be waiting for me.
Were you familiar with The Rocketeer at that point?
No, I literally knew nothing about her other than recognizing her image. I
had no knowledge of anything connected to her image at all.
Did you broach the idea of a documentary right away with her? Was
she receptive to the idea?
Oh, absolutely, I brought it up on our first meeting. She was receptive,
though she questioned why anyone would
want to make a
documentary about her. She was flattered of course, but she didn't really
get why anyone would want to make one.
Was she open to the idea of being interviewed? Did she put any
restrictions on the interview process?
Well, we started by just doing things like going to lunch together. So it
was more of an informal interview process. And she'd just launch into
these stories, it was like hearing your grandmother tell you about her sex
life. But then we got into a more formal interview environment and she
was very open. Bettie wasn't the type to even think about placing
restrictions on anything. She had that genuine quality, the same quality
that comes through so clearly in her photos, and her personality just didn't
have any self-censorship.
In the documentary , she seems alternately nonplussed and kind of
amazed by her fame. What was your take on how she perceived herself
and her place in American iconography?
She never was able to even compute that thought, the thought of her
being an icon just didn't make sense to her. She was flattered, she liked
the attention, and she certainly liked having some money for her old age
that she was finally able to get, but that's kind of the extent of how she
processed everything.
So, returning to your allusion about Bettie being institutionalized at
Patton State. Tell me about that. Did she seem mentally stable to you
when you interviewed her? What do you think of her being
institutionalized, was it justified? Did you broach the subject with her?
She didn't discuss it at first. I wasn't even aware of it until the Richard
Foster book came out after I had met her, where he was the one who
revealed that. Once that was out there, she was completely open about
discussing it, however. This is the one thing she didn't immediately
volunteer, and I simply didn't even know to ask. However once I found out
about it, she didn't try to hide anything from me and was very open about
discussing it. And I think based on what she did, and my understanding of
her mental state from her third husband, she apparently did deserve to be
in the institution. She seemed perfectly rational to me when I interviewed
her, though she sometimes seemed like she was on medication, with
slurred words when she spoke.
Is there anything new on the Bettie Page horizon for you?
Well, we're still actively promoting the film and it's still screening at festivals
around the world. In fact, I'm about to go to Warsaw for a screening.
There will be a burlesque group there and lots of Bettie fans.
And any new projects that you're working on?
Well, I've got projects in development that are too new for me to really talk
about. But I will say that one is a tv series on a sexually themed subject
that grows out of Bettie Page.
Sounds enticing! Thanks for your time, Mark.
Thank you!