biodoc

JANE FONDA IN FIVE ACTS: self-assessment and self-revelation

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Jane Fonda appears in JANE FONDA IN FIVE ACTS by Susan Lacy, an official selection of the Documentary Premieres program at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo courtesy of Everett Collection.

HBO is airing a remarkable biodoc of Jane Fonda, Jane Fonda in Five Acts.  It turns the talking head documentary on its, well, talking head, because the main narrator/commentator on Jane Fonda’s life is Jane Fonda herself.  She reveals the most personal, even intimate, experiences and feelings; you could tag this as “extremely personally revealing” or even as “oversharing”.  either way, I found it irresistible.

The theme is that Fonda’s life was shaped, in phases, by (or to reflect), the four most important men in her life: her father Henry Fonda and her husbands Roger Vadim, Tom Hayden and Ted Turner.  Hayden, Turner,  her son Troy Garity and her BFF Paula Weinstein get the most screen time among various confidantes.  But mostly, this film is Jane herself, neat with a chaser.

From being the daughter of a movie super star dad and a suicidal mom, through a starlet period, to the shrill activist with the Klute hairdo, to the video exercise queen and then billionaire’s bride, it a helluva story.  If you dislike Jane Fonda, you’ll find this biodoc annoying.  If you’re like me, you’ll find it fascinating.

WYETH: what is a muse?

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Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World, featured in WYETH

Wyeth, the latest documentary in the PBS American Masters series, takes on the odd case of the great painter Andrew Wyeth and explores the question, what is a muse?    And how can great art come from the most unlikely and obscure subjects?

Every artist has a source of inspiration, and it’s amazing that Wyeth was able to find his while living an unusually parochial life.   Choosing not to “see the world”, Wyeth spent his entire life in two rural settings – his childhood home in  Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. and his summer coastal home in Cushing, Maine.  Fortunately, some of his neighbors allowed him to hang around and watch them in their daily lives.  Wyeth would then pad along home to his studio and churn out hundreds of finely detailed paintings from what he remembered.

In doing so, he rendered iconic some very unlikely subjects by painting them again and again – a disabled neighbor woman, a stolid farmer, an alcoholic eccentric.

We learn that Wyeth could spend all of his time on his two obsessions – studying the locals and painting them – because of his wife Betsy.  From age 17, Betsy managed Wyeth’s business, household and family, freeing him to devote every thought to the artistic process.

That’s why it was so shocking when Wyeth revealed fifteen years’ work – over 200 paintings, many erotic – with a subject Betsy had known nothing about.

Wyeth draws upon rich source material, including never-before-seen family photos and artifacts, and we meet Wyeth’s family members, neighbors and subjects, and visit the actual homes where Wyeth studied his subjects.

Wyeth will be airing on the PBS American Masters series beginning on September 7.

WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?: gentleness from ferocity

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Fred Rogers with his Daniel Tiger in WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is the surprisingly moving biodoc of Fred Rogers, the originator and host of the PBS children’s program The Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood.  I had missed this movie at the San Francisco International Film Festival where it submerged audiences in their hankies.

Of course, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? tells the story of the show.  But, more than that, it relates Rogers’ fierce passion for the plight of small children, and his need to protect them and help their emotional development.

What is so surprising is that Rogers’ sometimes laughably gentle affect sprang from such internal ferocity.  It turns that Rogers was a man who hated, hated, hated the moral emptiness and materialism of commercial children’s television.

His need to help children through difficult times drove him to explain the word “assassination” the day after RFK was killed.  And to demystify, clarify and normalize divorce and a host of other potentially child-traumatizing topics.  Utterly unafraid of (most) controversy in a timid medium, he was first and foremost the champion for small children, a cardigan-clad champion.

I am immune to Mr. Rogers nostalgia because I am too old to have watched the show as a kid, and it was no longer a first-run show when my own kid came of age.  So I was surprised to find myself choked with emotion when Fred Rogers explained to a very skeptical Senator John Pastore the need to “make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable”.  As Rogers recited the lyrics of his song about having feelings and staying in control, Pastore visibly melted (and so did I).

In Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, Rogers’ family and his TV crew reveal their insider views of Rogers and his show.  The origins of the characters, the puppets, the songs and themes are explained.  But the core of Won’t You Be My Neighbor? is that Fred Rogers resolutely believed that every small child is deserving of love and has value, a view which has sadly become controversial among some.

RBG: humanizing a stonefaced icon

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RBG

RBG is the affectionate and enlightening biodoc about US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  The challenge, of course, is in making such a famously stonefaced 84-year-old subject relatable.  RBG pulls that off by hearing from Ginsburg’s family and childhood friends, and by showing her reaction to the “Notorious RPG” meme and to her portrayals on SNL.

Most importantly, RBG traces her longtime marriage to her late husband Marty, an affable extrovert with a zany sense of humor.  He was a highly accomplished lawyer in his own right but, unusual for his generation, was also a man who embraced his wife’s career goals surpassing his own.

This is an exciting movie for a legal geek (like me). RBG documents Ginsburg’s role as the leading legal strategist for women’s rights, carefully picking the factual bases and the sequence of cases heading to the Supreme Court.  It appears that Ginsburg really has only Thurgood Marshall as a peer in orchestrating the progress of a major civil rights movement.

Unfortunately that makes Ginsburg’s dissents in the regressive decisions of Roberts Court (Bush v Gore, Hobby Lobby, Shelby) all the more sobering.

That being said, what is impressive (and reassuring) is that RBG shows Ginsburg working out at the gym – she can hold a plank longer than I can hold mug of beer.

I must note that RBG is outright reverential – but why not?  Ginsburg deserves it.

WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?: an already turbulent life disrupted

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WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?
WHAT HAPPENED, MISS SIMONE?

The biodoc What Happened, Miss Simone? opens with the middle-aged singer Nina Simone coming on-stage for a come-back concert in the mid-1970s.  We see her regarding the audience – and we ask, is she a temperamental artist or is she high or is she unhinged?

Nina Simone led a remarkable life, presented in this documentary by filmmaker Liz Garbus.  Growing up as a poor girl in the segregated South, Simone’s talent as a classical pianist led her to Julliard.  A racial glass ceiling in classical music, redirected her to earning a living singing blues in nightclubs.  Her gifts as a vocalist and as a songwriter earned her a recording deal.  Then she became consumed by militant political activism to the expense of her career.

That’s a pretty interesting arc, but the core of What Happened, Miss Simone? is that she was bipolar and long undiagnosed and untreated.  The illness made what was already a turbulent life more erratic and self-destructive.  Garbus has the benefit of testimony from Simone’s intimates – her daughter, husband, musical director, managers and friends.  We even see Simone’s own thoughts through her often heartbreaking journal entries.

What Happened, Miss Simone? is available to stream on Netflix Instant.