She was one of many worst folks in Hollywood, based on Bette Davis. To Jack Nicholson, she was “the Dreaded Dunaway”. Steve McQueen unflatteringly nicknamed her Performed Fadeaway on the set of The Thomas Crown Affair, both as a consequence of her excessive weight reduction or as a result of he thought she was a no-mark. She wasn’t. Faye Dunaway stays an icon of Hollywood’s second golden age, a fantastically gifted actor and a central determine within the movie star gossip sphere. However behind the scrumptious anecdotes was a girl scuffling with undiagnosed bipolar dysfunction, a darkness that’s hinted at however by no means absolutely explored on this documentary from the director Laurent Bouzereau.
Our first encounter with Dunaway, now 83, gives a presumably tongue-in-cheek demonstration of her trademark belligerence (or is she genuinely this impolite?), as she calls for that Bouzereau start capturing instantly (“I’m right here now, come on!”). But she goes on to gamely narrate her evolution from Dorothy Faye, introduced up by a single mom in Tallahassee, Florida, to imperious Oscar winner (we additionally hear from her pal Sharon Stone, Barfly co-star Mickey Rourke, director James Grey, her son, Liam, and others). Dunaway’s rise – by way of Elia Kazan’s rep firm, then Broadway – was swift, the logical results of spectacular talent, incomparable magnificence and sheer will. She seized the zeitgeist with meaty, fascinating initiatives: we hear how a spate of career-defining movies from the 60s and 70s – Bonnie and Clyde, The Thomas Crown Affair, Chinatown, the amazingly prophetic Community – captured the shifting spirit of the period (nodding respectively to political violence, ladies’s lib, governmental corruption and the dehumanising impact of TV). She was a critical star with infamously excessive requirements and the chutzpah to make sure they had been met.
Such is the splendour of Dunaway’s imperial section that Faye initially doesn’t really feel like hagiography; the gushing appears justified. It’s solely once we get to the early 80s, when her profession dramatically declined, that it turns into clear how varnished this tribute is. Because the star of Mommie Dearest, the 1981 adaptation of Christina Crawford’s explosive memoir about life along with her film-star mom, Joan, Dunaway was ridiculed for her melodramatic efficiency and the movie flopped. This documentary cleaves tightly to the four-act story construction and that is the third-act disaster – however the decision should see the actor restored to glory. Mommie Dearest’s eventual reclamation as a camp cult traditional (because of its unintentional hilarity) is a part of the documentary’s heat and fuzzy ultimate stretch, which additionally chronicles Dunaway’s transfer in the direction of left-field cinema and her present standing as a legend. In actuality, the second half of her profession was stuffed with catastrophe that’s solely partially coated right here (her 1993 sitcom It Needed to Be You is cited for instance of her prescient embrace of TV; no person mentions that it was cancelled after 4 episodes).
Faye doesn’t paper over all of the cracks. As a way to centre essentially the most intimate insights Dunaway gives – she references her alcoholism and discusses her comparatively latest bipolar prognosis – it should acknowledge her standing as a notoriously tough colleague. But the documentary doesn’t ask many tough questions. That’s probably due to the heavy involvement of its star, in addition to Liam, a detailed pal of the director. Admirably, Dunaway has all the time had wholesome boundaries in relation to her privateness: we witness her elegant deflection of queries about her affair with Marcello Mastroianni in a 1972 interview, and right here she rightly refuses to delve into the story behind Liam’s adoption. She is keen to speak about her psychological well being however solely up to a degree – we hear only a few concrete particulars. There are a glut of hair-raising rumours about her lack of professionalism, on-set feuds and abusive tirades, none of that are correctly addressed on this movie.
One factor Faye does pull off is its intelligent, fashionable construction, which neatly equates Dunaway’s most well-known roles with elements of her personal character: she performed an alcoholic in Barfly, for instance, and a workaholic in Community. In direction of the top, her son even means that her mothering resembled the demented Joan Crawford character in Mommie Dearest, who memorably attacked her daughter with a wire coathanger; Liam says Dunaway’s moods had been “virtually like Mommie Dearest. She simply has that vitality”. Their relationship seems shut and loving – Dunaway is moved to tears when discussing the fun of parenthood – however the comparability suggests there’s a lot trauma right here, too.
But Faye isn’t an exposé. It’s a misty-eyed homage made in collaboration with its topic – and one which depends too closely on allusion and inference to be actually candid or revelatory. If you wish to luxuriate in Dunaway’s potent display screen presence, simply watch the movies; for those who’re after juicy but unverified scandal, learn a Reddit thread. This documentary falls into the hole between them, providing an incomplete however nonetheless troubling portrait of a singular diva.
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