what (not) to doc

Coming to DVD today, Friday, January 17:
BETTY: THEY SAY I’M DIFFERENT

Director:
Phil Cox

World Premiere:
IDFA 2017

Select Festivals:
Melbourne, Indielisboa, In-Edit, Revelation Perth, Festival Del Popoli, Indie Memphis

About:
On the pioneering but mysteriously short-lived career of 1970s funk queen Betty Davis.

For a brief time in the early 1970s, Betty Davis was the queen of funk. Though unfairly better known as Miles Davis’ wife, she released three albums and attracted notoriety for her raunchy lyrics and suggestive stage antics. By the end of the decade, however, she left the music industry and moved to Pittsburgh. Director Phil Cox explores Davis’ career, making an argument for her importance and influence on those that followed, and approaches her disappearance as a great mystery. Unfortunately, the film – clocking in at under an hour – doesn’t allot enough room to fully develop either of these threads, opting instead for teases of Davis’ presence and unnecessarily obtuse semi-experimental flourishes, leaving her to remain an intriguing but still elusive figure in the end.