Faye Review – Intimate Portrait of Hollywood Legend is a Must See
- Details
- Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film
- Published on Friday, 12 July 2024 10:34
- Written by Janet Walker
FAYE, from HBO Documentary Films, presents an intimate portrait of Hollywood legend Faye Dunaway, as she reminisces, remembers, and recollects the memorable moments of her life, childhood, career successes and stumbles, and her iconic poolside post-Oscar photo shoot.
The documentary opens with Hollywood legend Faye Dunaway inviting viewers into her life, and she begins a chronological journey as many meet, for the first time, Dorothy Faye Dunaway, a little girl playing on the dirt road in Florida. We meet her mother and brother, and she explains early her father suffered from the disease of alcoholism, and her mother had the wherewithal to write to the Department of Defense to draft him, and they did and from that time on, her father couldn't drink away the weekly payday as the DOD check went directly to her mom.
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From then on, life as an Army brat had both a positive and negative effect on her life. She tells of the travel and every two years she would be forced to pick up, leave friends, and move to a new town, and become once again a stranger, in a new, strange place, until she formed loose attachments, only to leave them again. It was a pattern, she explains later, that affected her love life and relationships as an adult.
As we walk through her life, we see also those key moments, some not as pivotal as they seemed but necessary to her development as an iconic talent. She attended college, joined the drama club, won a beauty contest, and decided Boston was her next stop. She was eventually accepted into a Lincoln Center Repertory company led by Elia Kazan who, along with playwright William Alfred, became her mentor. Alfred cast her in the Broadway theater production of GOATS, in 1965, and the role, and excellent reviews, launched her career.
The documentary then moves into her film career. There is footage from Chinatown with Jack Nicholson, Bonnie and Clyde, with Warren Beatty, The Thomas Crown Affair, with Steven McQueen, Three Days of the Condor with Robert Redford, and then her Academy Award performance in the 1976 film, Network.
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She explains the casting process for Bonnie and Clyde, and film historian and author Mark Harris, explains the film was a boy's club picture. With Arthur Penn directing, all that was left was casting, "the girl." Film professor Annette Insdorf also explains the actresses who were also considered, were all well established, even then.
As Ms. Dunaway explains, she was Arthur Penn's choice and he essentially and finally said, that if Faye wasn't cast, he was out. Bonnie and Clyde changed filmmaking and introduced themes that had not been introduced on screen up to that point. The film has become a classic and is listed as number 27, in the top 100 films of all time.
In 1976, Network, with Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Peter Finch, and Robert Duvall, was released for which Ms. Dunaway received an Academy Award for her performance. While many may not remember the film, or the Oscar telecast, the picture taken by Terry O'Neill, who staged the scene at the Beverly Hills Hotel and asked the newest Academy Award winner for 15 minutes of her time at sunrise, has become a classic image that portrays the ultimate career success and is both contemplative, and reflective.
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She also talks about her husbands, lovers, and others, and explains how the pattern of her Army brat days, came back to haunt and disrupt her adult relationships. As the documentary moves into the post-Oscar, and eternal youth transition time in Hollywood, we begin to see how women, acclaimed, talented, and beautiful are considered past their prime at 40, and if they are not thin, even to the point of unhealthy, they have no shelf life in films. It's a sad commentary that women need to fight to survive in the industry and to survive they must starve themselves, to the point of creating irreparable physical harm.
This may have fueled her passion for the role of Joan Crawford, in Mommie Dearest, for which she transformed into the Hollywood Golden Age legend. While many critics panned the film as depressing and a waste of time, talent, and resources, many others believed it should have been Ms. Dunaway's second Academy Award nomination, and the film broke barriers by exposing Crawford's mental illness, and child abuse.
Ms. Dunaway also explains her bipolar diagnosis and her swings between mania and depression.
FAYE presents the life of Faye Dunaway, and with her permission as she narrates and walks with viewers, we not only see the moments, but we hear her insight, recollections, and backstories, behind many of these iconic moments of a life lived in the spotlight. She explains her demons and reputation, as volatile, and by the end, we see is a life well lived, the courage to rise after the stumbles, hurts, and heartbreaks, embrace the now and remain present for each moment.
A must see, FAYE premieres on HBO on July 13, 2024, at 8:00 pm EST. It will be available to stream on MAX.
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Country: U.S.
Runtime: 90 minutes.
Release Date: July 13, 2024.
Director: Laurent Bouzereau.
Producer: Laurent Bouzereau, Markus Keith, Justin Falvey, and Darryl Frank; edited by Jason Summers; composer, Tyler Strickland.
Executive Producers: Nancy Abraham, Lisa Heller, and Sara Rodriguez.
Directors of photography: Travers Jacobs, Chris Johnson, Toby Thiermann.
Featured Participants: Faye Dunaway, Liam Dunaway O'Neill, author Mark Harris, journalist Robin Morgan, film professor Annette Insdorf, photographer and director Jerry Schatzberg, author David Itzkoff, actors Sharon Stone, Mickey Rourke, filmmaker James Gray.
