Beauty Knows No Pain (1971)
A film about the Kilgore Rangerettes made by Elliot Erwitt (1928-2023).
Erwitt clearly finds the Rangerettes humorous and wants his audience to as well. The choice of shots, cuts, interviews, and music combine to convey his message.
Auteur Theory holds that a film reflects its director's personal creative vision. Beauty Knows No Pain is a fine example.
Films never simply show what is there. They create what is there. There are many ways to tell a story and many stories that could be told, but only one appears on the screen.
Of course, Erwitt does say something "true" about the Rangerettes. The scenes in the film really did take place. However, its easy to imagine how shots taken in the same two week period could produce a very different film.
Gussy Nell Davis (1906-1993), the founder and director of the Rangerettes was said to have liked the film.
Beauty Knows No Pain is available at: https://archive.org/details/beautyknowsnopain
Elliott Erwitt is certainly one of the great photographers of the 20th century. He did photographs for many mid 20th century magazines including Colliers, Look, and Life. He is a member of the Magnum photo group, a cooperative that includes many of the most important photographers. Erwitt turned to film making in the 1970s. In addition to this one, Erwitt's films include Red, White and Bluegrass (1973) and Glassmakers of Herat, Afghanistan (1977). He also worked on Gimme Shelter (1970) about the final days of the 1969 Rolling Stones US tour. The tour ended with the infamous Altamont Free Concert. Concert security was provided by Hells Angels. Meredith C Hunter, an 18 year old African American arts student was killed by them during the performance. Hunter's murder appears as part of the film. It's hard to imagine a bigger cultural shift than moving from Altamont to filming the Rangerettes. It's probably this kind of transition that gives Erwitt such a wry and ironic eye. Erwitt has a website