Glenn here. Each Tuesday we bring you reviews and features on documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. This week we’re looking at two biographical HBO documentaries about cinema legends.
Despite a resume that reads as limited, Nora Ephron's reputation over film and pop culture general looms large. Directed by her son, journalist Jacob Bernstein, there is likely little this new biographic documentary Everything is Copy that won’t be familiar to fans of the witty essayist/author/screenwriter/director’s work – not least of all when featuring old clips of Ephron narrating her own books directly the camera. But thankfully Bernstein’s film isn’t simply a rehash of his mother’s life, rather he occasionally finds minor nooks and crannies of her life that she herself hadn’t written about at length. Helped by words from her sisters and friends, an image of Ephron is formed that while no doubt glowing allows for us to learn even more about her than her famously candid words previously allowed.
Beyond all of that, first and foremost, Everything is Copy is an entertainment. A breezy and bright glimpse of a woman whose wit was matched by her scathing honesty and who left behind many works of cultural significance that are worth parsing over.
New York movies, Nora's death, and a conversation with Mike Nichols after the jump...
Bernstein utilizes a neat storytelling trick by having passages of her life begin with an introduction by her own words, yet spoken by the many younger women and contemporaries whom she inspired; names like Lena Dunham, Meg Ryan, Reese Witherspoon, Gaby Hoffman, Rita Wilson and more. Filmed in grainy black and white – or at least processed to look that way – they act as calming moments of bliss amid the storm that was her life, full as it was with marriages, divorces, personal struggles and triumphs, movies, plays, and books. Small anecdotes prove equally amusing such as when Steven Spielberg notes that when he once made her laugh, it was just like winning an Oscar. It is in fact a recurring theme that anybody in her orbit wanted to impress her. With each passing essay extract, snippet of dialogue, or moment of clarity, the reasoning for a film about her beyond mere familial love and celebrity duty is proven.
Everything is Copy also works quite wonderfully as a New York movie. Not just any New York movie, but the sort that Ephron herself would make as pieced together by archival footage and movie clips that present the city as a glowing beacon of architectural skylines etched into the sunny skies of the Upper West Side. It is perhaps interesting to note how significant her very private death plays in the film’s touching final 30 minutes. If, as we’re lead to believe, Ephron was adamant about keeping the details of her encroaching dance with fate a private secret, how are we to feel about prying into it now years later? This quandary is one of the only issues to stand out among the delights that Bernstein’s film offers.
Death likewise lingers over Becoming Mike Nichols, a project that was birthed out of a desire by producer Frank Rich to get Nichols’ own words down since the Oscar-winning cinematic great had never and had no desire to write a personal memoir. This film, directed by Douglas McGrath and pieced together out of two separate (yet curiously identical if you’re paying attention) interviews – one in front of an audience, the other one-on-one, both conducted by stage director Jack O’Brien – and interspersed with stage and film clips, focuses predominantly on the early era of Nichols’ life, the period that lead to the concept or the idea of ‘Mike Nichols’ as we know it: his early work on the stage with Elaine May, and his earliest film projects, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf and The Graduate.
However, the film feels only half-baked and while I admire the documentary’s efforts in segmenting his career to allow a heavier focus on one thing over another, this film ultimately feels like a part one on a much larger work with sequels that never came to pass. Apparently Nichols himself wasn’t all that interested in discussing his later work, which is disappointing given he hardly stopped making great works after winning a best director Oscar for The Graduate (including Angels in America for HBO, the network that produced this film). Whatever the reasons, it certainly doesn’t stop Becoming Mike Nichols from being an interesting watch for fans - i certainly appreciated the early footage with May that I'd never seen before - but the finished product works best as a DVD supplement as perhaps a primer for a Nichols newcomer before diving into his esteemed filmography.
In a neat twist, Nichols appears in Everything is Copy so the two sit side-by-side as almost sister films about two of the great artists of their times. Both films are available on HBO platforms.
Oscar Chances: I believe both received Oscar qualifying runs so I would expect to see them on the very long list of Oscar contenders later in the year. Everything is Copy may stand a chance of gaining some attention, but it's rare for docs about filmmakers to advance far for whatever reason.