How objective are the documentaries that celebrities make about themselves?

First there was The last dancenow there is Beckham, Sly And Arnold. The number of stars who have documentaries about their biography is noticeably increasing. The thing is, they usually produce those films themselves. So how objective are they?

At some point during filming Beckham Director Fisher Stevens walked into the kitchen and saw David Beckham washing dishes. Stevens immediately grabbed his camera. A former football star and millionaire doing his own chores: that revealing moment was bound to appear on screen. But once Beckham spotted the camera, he put everything aside.

because Beckham – the four-part docuseries on David Beckham, a co-production of Beckham’s Studio 99 company – the Manchester United icon didn’t need to film anything he didn’t feel comfortable with. But Stevens insisted. “I thought, David, please, this is who you are, this is what you do,” the director said in a recent interview. “We often had to negotiate, and nothing went right. It took time.” Stevens tried to persuade Beckham for more than a year, until he finally gave in: Beckham It can be watched on Netflix along with the laundry scene.

Documentary filmmakers have an inherently fraught relationship with the people they photograph, because what makes a compelling biographical film – a frank, insightful portrait of an individual in all their complexity – is always at odds with the interests of the person who is its subject. And after: in the wake of The last dance (2020), the ten-part documentary series about Michael Jordan produced by Netflix in collaboration with Jordan’s own company Jump 23, many athletes, musicians, and other movie stars lined up to bring their own legacy to the small screen. Which raises an obvious question: If a celebrity commissions and co-produces a documentary about themselves, can that documentary be balanced and objective?

“I know people say, ‘Oh, his company was involved,’” Fisher-Stevens said. “But the Beckhams really wanted to tell the best, most honest story possible. They really didn’t want to do a Beckham commercial. However, Stevens himself was initially skeptical about the idea that the film would be produced under the auspices of Beckham himself. He was not interested in “ornate hagiography.” In the end, he agreed, on the condition that he would have the final say on the final edit and that Beckham would be willing to “settle himself in uncomfortable territory.” Stevens: “The key was to stay true to my vision and not bend to theirs. The amazing and beautiful thing was that they trusted us.”

The New Yorker He pointed to Beckham’s behind-the-scenes role as a possible reason why the film “avoids some fairly questionable player choices,” such as his ambassador to Qatar, the host nation of the 2022 World Cup that has been heavily criticized for its human rights abuses. At the same time, he added, this bias is “part of the strength of the documentary,” because it shows how Beckham sees himself. The New Yorker.

Checks

Tom Zimny, director of the new Sylvester Stallone documentary Malicious, cunning On Netflix, he argues that skepticism about these types of films stems from a fundamental misconception: “If the person you’re making a documentary about is also a member of the production team, I think that creates a certain projection on the film, that there’s control,” he says. . “While making Malicious, cunning There was never a moment where I felt Stallone’s influence. There was never a moment when he said: “This is the position you should take”, “You should not talk about these topics.”

Criticisms Malicious, cunning is that the documentary is too forgiving for Stallone. Watchman He wrote that “Puffy bits don’t get any puffier than this.” He denounced Zimny’s “disturbing subservience.” Although Stallone is open about his past and feelings, the documentary doesn’t pay much attention to his failures in the film world. Failure like Stop! Or my mother will shoot It is overlooked and few people who speak out have anything negative to say about Sylvester Stallone.

Zimny ​​insists that he is not obligated to submit to Stallone. “We were never told beforehand that something wasn’t possible,” he says. “He looked at what we made and always said he was very happy with it. We worked with someone who gave us the space to make the film better.

The documentary shows that Stallone often tinkered with scripts, changed endings and improvised dialogue while filming the film. According to Zimny, this desire for control did not appear during the making of the documentary: “I readily admit that the story Malicious, cunning “It contradicts my experience as a documentary filmmaker.”

Self-mythology

According to Pete Nix, director of the recent Apple TV+ documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated, Celebrities are “like a shell” and “documentary filmmakers have to try to slip into that shell.” Stars inevitably have other directors and actors, and it can be difficult for filmmakers “to work in such a context and still find authenticity,” says Nix.

Unanimous, NBA player Stephen Curry’s production company, was one of the film’s sponsors, but Curry himself did not serve as a producer. Nicks says he had some creative differences with the company about the direction the film would take. For example, Carrey’s collaborators dreamed of interviewing Barack Obama and Drake, while Nicks only wanted interviewees who would fit organically into the film.

However, it’s hard to deny that the documentary paints a very positive picture of Curry. Undervalued He constantly reminds us that Curry managed to create his own destiny, overcome doubts and achieve great things despite his many reservations. Even the title seems self-mythical. “The idea that Curry is still an underdog is laughable when you consider that his production company is called Unanimous, so named because Curry was the only player in NBA history to be unanimously voted to win the Most Valuable Player Award.” New Republic.

Nicks says his idea was to portray Curry in such a way that the athlete “didn’t come to me and say this is the way the story should be told.” Nicks: “I hesitated about this title for a while, but the better I got to know him, the better I understood his story and the more it made sense.”

Mistakes and disagreements

One of the few recent documentaries about stars that was not produced by the star himself is the three-part documentary Arnold, about bodybuilder, actor, and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Director Lesley Chilcot said: “Every documentary filmmaker is different, and I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think if you really want a successful, compelling documentary about a celebrity, you have to be objective.” “You want the opportunity to say what I said to Arnold: No topic should be left undiscussed, and that includes all the things you read about in the press. We’re not going to beat around the bush.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger faces many of his own missteps and controversies, including a 1996 affair with his housekeeper and sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced several years ago. These are not things you would want to cover in a commercial; This documentary raises difficult questions that make Schwarzenegger’s legacy even more complicated. Chilcot says the freedom to address these issues was part of the deal when she agreed to produce the documentary. Schwarzenegger also had no creative control.

Chilcot: Did he want to talk about these issues? No, he didn’t want that. Did he want to keep putting it off once he agreed to it? Yes, he wanted that. But Arnold was smart enough to realize that he had to talk about this. He knew it had to be done and was wise enough to understand that a documentary couldn’t be black and white, and it couldn’t just be about his successes. United Press International wrote that Schwarzenegger’s willingness to address his mistakes and take responsibility for his actions “makes the series more than just a glorified trailer.”

As Chilcot told Schwarzenegger himself: “We’re going to have to talk about your failures. When you have a lot of success, your failures are an important part of it.

Beckham, Malicious, cunning And Arnold It can still be watched on Netflix, Stephen Curry: Underrated On Apple TV+.

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