Celebrity biographical documentaries are like wild cats these days: there are half a dozen of them on every corner. But Faye (now available on Max), a retrospective on the life and career of superstar actress Faye Dunaway, is at least a slightly different story, a subject-approved profile that isn’t afraid to tackle sensitive topics with some candor. The relative bombshell in this film that’s likely to generate some headlines is that Dunaway, who has long been called “difficult to work with” (historically, a qualifier more often applied to women than men), has managed bipolar disorder, depression, and alcoholism for decades. She’s not making excuses, either: “I remain responsible for my actions,” she says. And now one can’t help but examine her extraordinary, all-time-best work in films like Chinatown, Bonnie and Clyde, Grid, bar fly and Dear mom Through a new lens.
Faye-ySTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: At the time of filming, it was 45 years since Dunaway was captured in one of the most famous photos in Hollywood history: reclining in a chair, poolside, the morning after winning the Oscar for her performance in Gridwith his feet on scattered newspapers reporting his great victory in big headlines. His expression is laconic and emblematic: Now what?seems to say. Even if you think you don’t know the photo, you probably do. We’ll come back to it at the end of the documentary, but now we get the usual introduction as Dunaway’s friends and associates and various admirers and experts (Sharon Stone, Mickey Rourke, her son Liam Dunaway O’Neill, and more) pile on the praise. “A legend.” “An inspiration.” “A force of nature.” My favorite is “must see,” because even though I’ve only seen Grid Once, and I have seen, no exaggeration, thousands of films since then, I have not forgotten his harrowing portrait of a powerful television executive whose moral conscience had long since been eradicated.
Other words thrown at her: “Strong,” “Volatile,” “Aggressive,” “Complicated.” We watch as she shifts on a couch, trying in vain to get comfortable, and then asks for water in a glass, not a bottle. Take that last part with a grain of salt. It’s Dunaway winking at us. She was born Dorothy Faye Dunaway in rural South Carolina, and she explains why she dropped her first name: Dorothy is that Southern country girl, Faye is her XXL career persona. She talks about how her father struggled with alcoholism, so her mother asked the Army to draft him so life at home would be quieter and the bills would get paid. His military career prompted them to move every couple of years, and that’s why, she theorizes, her personal relationships only last a couple of years at a time; it was the cycle she fell into. She worked her way up through regional theater, then formal art school, then Off-Broadway, to Broadway, and on to Hollywood. The best advice she ever received was from director Elia Kazan, who told her to get all the emotions pent up behind her Strong Woman exterior out and let them out during her performances.
From here, Faye Director Laurent Bouzereau works chronologically throughout his career: first triumphs as Bonnie and Clyde and The Thomas Crown Affairlong exams of Chinatown and Grid – and then Dear momwhich undermined his earlier powerful dramatic work with the camp infamy. “Before Dear mom and then Dear mom“It’s a different Faye Dunaway,” says film critic Michael Koresky. “It was one of the mistakes,” Dunaway says matter-of-factly. Along the way, she talks about relationships, motherhood, mental illness. Bouzereau gives a quick rundown of her later career, pausing to note the importance of the 1987 film. bar flywhich casts her in the deglamorous role of a Skid Row alcoholic. She talks about her personal and professional ups and downs in a way that is both measured and revealing. We see a lot of Faye here, and her uniqueness is, yes, inescapable.
What movies will it remind you of? Faye It is not as raw and revealing as Michael J. Fox’s documentary. Stillbut it is much more revealing than Cunning either Pamela, a love story either Arnold (Just to name a few from the last year or so!)
Performance worth watching: The idea that anyone could outshine Faye Dunaway is idiotic. Period.
Memorable dialogue: Liam reflects on his mother’s struggles with bipolar disorder: ‘If she hadn’t suffered so much, would she have been so good?’
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: I don’t know what you think, but I’m here to talk about… bar flyIt’s one of my all-time favorite movies, directed by Barbet Schroeder from a (somewhat autobiographical?) screenplay by Charles Bukowski, starring Mickey Rourke as a perpetually drunk, low-life L.A. poet who finds himself in a relationship with Dunaway’s professional drinking buddy. They drink and live and live and drink, and their lives are hard-boiled but strangely beautiful and in the moment. You remember Dunaway as a fashion icon of the ’60s and ’70s, and in this movie, her hair is unwashed and her face is hard-boiled and her smile is infectious, and she’s as real and funny as can be.
Anyway, many celebrity biographical documentaries stay on the surface and seem like promotional tools rather than stories about hope, achievement, triumph and tragedy. But I think it’s impossible to make a “light” documentary about Faye Dunaway. She’s too heavy, too charismatic, too direct. She just gets serious. until now The film delves into her inner life, but there’s never a moment that smacks of disingenuousness. It’s a delicate balance, stopping short of too-awkward moments but still touching on difficult truths that will likely resonate with viewers. This thoughtful, but never intrusive, look at her character justifies the documentary’s existence, making it more than just a vanity project. Bouzereau has publicly stated that it was difficult to convince Dunaway to make the film, which shouldn’t come as a surprise; any self-respecting person would have to grapple with that idea.
He Dear mom The segment is especially fascinating: while simultaneously calling it a mistake, it appropriates the work in all its midnight-cult-movie glory. It’s a powerful illustration of how an artist’s work takes on a new life in the hands of consumers and appreciators. Stone, one of Dunaway’s close and long-time friends, shares a particularly powerful comment on this; she points the finger of blame at director Frank Perry as the one responsible for making the actors look bad in the film, and one can’t help but see Stone as one of the culprits for the actors’ poor image. Basic instinct infamy.
Bouzereau maintains Faye At 90 minutes, it veers away from films and ideas that cry out for a longer look. But you can’t argue with the level of appreciation for its subject, and one senses that Dunaway would be pleased with its direct, yet sensitive approach. We learn new things about her, and that’s huge, but if all it did was inspire us to rewatch all of her classics (and maybe some of the hidden gems), it would still be a success. Maybe it’s time to reevaluate. Dear momalso.
Our calling: Faye is one of the most powerful, insightful and entertaining celebrity documentaries in recent memory. And considering how many there are, that’s saying something. WATCH IT STREAMING.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
