Faye Dunaway's life is explored in a new documentary

Warner Bros Discovery

Late in the highly entertaining and insightful new HBO documentary about the life and career of Faye Dunaway, we learn how much this iconic star simply loves coming to the Cannes Film Festival. “Almost every year,” she says, not just for the best films in the world, but also to immerse herself in all aspects of filmmaking. In fact, I've seen her take it all in on film many times, both here at Cannes and at Telluride, to name just two festivals. So it seems fitting that Wednesday night's Cannes Classics section (with Dunaway in attendance, as the French call it) is the venue for the world premiere of this great new documentary, in which Dunaway tells pretty much everything about her life, loves, desires , ambitions, films, co-stars, depression, controversies, family and hopes for the future in a job she says she can't imagine not working.

Going into it, I didn't know what to expect, but what I got was a surprisingly direct and honest portrayal of someone, as the film puts it, “who started out as a normal person who wanted to be famous, and then That’s how it ended up. “a famous person who wants to be normal”. Actually, I didn’t understand that she wanted to be “famous.” It's clear that her real desire was acting, and her initial ambitions were not for Hollywood, but rather for work under the direction of Elia Kazan at Lincoln Center and then on Broadway before landing her first big one with multi-Academy Award-winning producer Sam The film's start was given a mirror in the bizarre 1960s hype, The event opposite Anthony Quinn. Ironically, it took her from New York back to her home state of Florida, where the film was shot. That was in the mid-sixties Bonnie & Clyde came just two years later, immediately establishing her as a major movie star and winning her first Oscar nomination.

Director Laurent Bouzereau is a veteran of several film-oriented documentaries, including a great one about Natalie Wood and many of Steven Spielberg's chronicles, and in fact his Amblin Productions are behind this one too. He's not trying to rewrite the rules of this star biodoc form, nor is HBO, which has had recent success with films ranging from Mary Tyler Moore to Rock Hudson. What makes it so compelling is that it allows a very collaborative Dunaway to tell her own story, from soup to nuts, with the help of her son Liam O'Neill, whom she and her future husband and world-renowned photographer Terry O'Neill adopted , when he was less than a week old. As they sit on the couch together, he pulls out photo after photo from a scrapbook to entice Dunaway to comment on what each photo means to her at different points in her life. And what a Life.

Born Dorothy Faye Dunaway, she grew up the daughter of an alcoholic father (which she admits she inherited) in a family that included a younger brother whom she idolized. There are stories about her school days, her attempts to win beauty pageants and finally her turn to drama in plays like Harvey And Medea. But it is her remarkably sharp recollection of the events of her life, career and especially films that make for some of the best stories.

At Bonnie & Clyde: Warren Beatty, who also produced, was unsure about her casting, but director Arthur Penn said he would go if Dunaway was not pour. Jane Fonda, Tuesday Weld and then Beatty's friend Leslie Caron were the early favorites.

At Chinatown: A strand of her very permed hair kept cropping up for the film and ruining the shoot until director Roman Polanski literally took matters into his own hands and tried to rip it off, sending his star into a profanity-filled temper tantrum and straight to her went trailer until she finally agreed to come back and continue filming, and thanks to costume designer Theodora Van Runkle with a cap placed directly on her head.

At Network: She won the Oscar for Best Actress and then, on O'Neill's advice, posed by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel early the next morning, alone with her Oscar on the table and the newspapers with headlines about the wins scattered everywhere scattered around her as she lay down on the roll of silk on the lounge chair. She says it was inspired by the song “Is That All There Is.” This image is one of the very first we see in the documentary and is considered one of the most iconic Hollywood shots of all time.

At Dearest mother: She survived the attacks of critics for her vivid portrayal of Joan Crawford, offering that she did what the script and director wanted. However, when asked about regrets, she mentioned making this film but then immediately defended the decision based on her admiration for Crawford. It's now a cult hit that I've seen several times and never gets bored.

There is talk of her marriages to rocker Peter Wolf, then to O'Neill and an affair with Marcello Mastroianni, even though he was married. She says it was probably him The love of her life. It also discusses in detail her diagnosed bipolar disorder and episodes of manic depression, which she says are the reason for how “difficult” she could be on set.

In fact, this film made me wonder if it would tackle this problem head-on or just try to gloss over it. Well, Bouzereau gets down to business almost immediately and shows an infamous film Tonight's show Clip of Johnny Carson asking Bette Davis if there's a co-star she can't stand. “Yes. Faye Dunaway,” Davis replied immediately. “And you can ask anyone else and they'll tell you the same thing!” Dunaway doesn't specifically discuss her experience with Davis (it was for a made-for-TV movie), but rather conveys that image of herself herself by showing how “difficult” it might be for her just to be in this interview Very amusing.

Author Mark Harris, Mickey Rourke (her co-star in barfly), Barry Primus, directors James Gray and Jerry Schatzberg (with whom she was romantically involved), a very funny Hawk Koch and Sharon Stone are among those interviewed on camera about Dunaway, the latter offering fascinating insights into life in the Grant life to someone in Dunaway's position in Hollywood.

After watching this film about her life, you will have a new respect for this great star. If it actually was her Difficult or “complicated” as one interviewee put it, the end results are all there to see on screen, a bona fide star who was really successful in the '70s but could have been just as good in Hollywood's earlier years, its golden age. I found I myself She wanted to see many of her films again, even the first one The event which is now only known for the title song by Diana Ross and the Supremes. Dunaway said she had a lot of fun doing it. Good enough for me. Time for a Faye retrospective and this beautiful film is the perfect reason for it.

Title: Faye

Festival: Cannes Film Festival (Cannes Classics)

Distributor: HBO documentaries

Director: Laurent Bouzereau

Duration: 1 hour and 31 minutes