Betty: They Say I’m Different (2017)

Directed by: Philip Cox | 55 minutes | documentary

She counted legendary musicians such as Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone among her circle of friends and was briefly married to jazz great Miles Davis, but Betty Davis (born Betty Mabry in 1945) has completely faded into obscurity. The world was simply not ready for her music in the early 1970s. Betty was one of the first women – and certainly the first black woman – to openly sang about her sexual urges. Her eccentric, unimaginative attire during performances underlined her free-spirited image once again. She tried for about three years to gain a foothold in the music world, but it turned out to be more conservative than the public would like to believe. She released three albums full of steaming funk, until she called it quits. The sales figures were disappointing, the public stayed away. Years later, Betty would become an important source of inspiration for artists such as Madonna, Beyoncé and Rihanna, at a time when women were able to handle their sexuality freely. Betty Davis was way ahead of her time. The moment she realized that, she was at an emotional low point in her life and decided to disappear from the scene: back into anonymity. Since then she has been an enigma, a mystery. Even the people close to her—musicians she worked with and even close friends—lost sight of her.

British documentary filmmaker Philip Cox became fascinated with Davis and decided to find out how she fared. In ‘Betty – They Say I’m Different’ (after the title of her second album) from 2017, he talks to relatives, close friends and former band members about the mystery of Betty Davis, investigates what made her so special and tries to find out why she so rigorously disappeared from the scene in the late 1970s. Betty was a flutter from an early age. Her grandmother sang songs for her by classic female blues pioneers like Ma Rainey. She adored her father, who stood behind her unconditionally. She wrote her first song at the age of twelve, entitled ‘I’m Going to Bake That Cake of Love’. In the documentary by Cox, Betty herself tells (in voice-over) about her first alter ego, the spiritual Crow, who is personified by a crow that lives inside her and wants to fly out at a certain moment. At the age of sixteen she leaves for New York to study. She earns some money from modeling and in her spare time, she spends her spare time in Greenwich Village, a hotbed of artists, musicians and actors. Here she meets Jimi Hendrix and Sly Stone and develops her copywriting skills. Her first hit is ‘Uptown (to Harlem)’ by The Chamber Brothers. Her meeting with Miles Davis in 1967 has enormous consequences for both: he stimulates her to record her music herself, she introduces him to Hendrix and Stone, which inspires him to develop his famous jazz fusion. Miles reinvents herself and isn’t afraid to share the credits with Betty, as she graced the cover of his 1968 album ‘Filles de Kilimanjaro’ and is the subject of one of the songs on that record (‘Miss Mabry’ ). There are also persistent rumors that it was Betty who gave Miles the idea to name his next groundbreaking double album not ‘Witches Brew’ but ‘Bitches Brew’.

The marriage didn’t last long, but long enough to change the lives of both spouses forever. Suddenly Betty was a progressive funk goddess who, with her explicit lyrics (‘If I’m in Luck, I Might Get Picked Up’) and daring outfits, became a trailblazer for artists like Madonna and Prince. In the documentary, her close friends tell us that there were two different Bettys: the Betty who turned on stage into an indomitable nymphomaniac who growled the most evocative lyrics into the air, and the sensitive Betty they knew in private. Her various alter egos often came into conflict with each other. In addition, she became disappointed in the music industry and the fact that her records were selling so poorly. After her third album ‘Nasty Gal’ (1975) she was quite disillusioned, but she was still working on a fourth album. The fact that it never came (at least, was only released in 2009), appears to have had to do with the death of her father, with whom her bond has always been close. His death was the last straw; the crow inside her couldn’t move its wings anymore and Betty decided to withdraw from public life abruptly.

In ‘Betty – They Say I’m Different’ the former funk goddess tells in voice-over what moved her at that time; Betty wouldn’t be Betty if things were a little different than usual. We see her, but not really. Cox manages to maintain the mystique surrounding Davis in a creative way. That way she keeps control. We also notice this during the telephone conversation that Betty has with her four former band members; they try to persuade her to go into the studio with them again, but Betty only answers the questions she wants to answer. To Cox’s credit, he has complied with Davis’s wishes. Even though we don’t get answers to every question, we still feel like we got to know Betty better after the film. In just 55 minutes, Cox manages to lift an influential musician and performer out of obscurity on the one hand, and to honor the carefully cultivated mysterious image of Davis on the other. Fascinating documentary about a fascinating woman!