Doc Corner: A Conversation with Gregory Peck on His 100th Birthday
Tuesday, April 5, 2016 at 11:00AM Glenn here. Each Tuesday we bring you reviews and features on documentaries from theatres, festivals, and on demand. This week we’re looking at a documentary about Gregory Peck for what would have been his centennial birthday.
“It takes ten pictures to make a star”, says the subject of A Conversation with Gregory Peck quoting Carole Lombard. It’s a statement worth reiterating today for any number of reasons, not least of all because there are few actors these days who epitomise the word ‘star’ better than Peck. It happens several times throughout this 1999 documentary where people refer to the Oscar-winning actor as a shining example of humanity and a beacon for what people ought to strive for. He was, and still is, a star.
This career overview and remembrance by Barbara Kopple offers Peck the same sort of dignity and respect that the director has afforded all of her subjects throughout her career including striking coal miners, meatpackers, and the Dixie Chicks. Much like Becoming Mike Nichols, which we looked at last week, A Conversation with Gregory Peck centers around a collection of talks the actor gave to audiences across America in Boston, Buffalo, Virginia and more. Peck would sit on stage and offer stories and anecdotes while dutifully answering audience questions and requests for autographs (he’s even more of a consummate professional to do entire Q&As without a moderator – those are tough). They act as a comforting storytelling device, the grandfather in the armchair telling stories of how he met his second wife, a journalist, after she ditched an interview with Albert Schweitzer to meet him for lunch in Paris, how he gave up thoughts of a career as a priest, and how the climactic gag of Roman Holiday’s mouth of truth scene was improvised.
These conversations only make up a small portion of the film, with the rest dedicated to following Peck and his family on holidays, to events, and through the pregnancy of his daughter, Cecelia (who would go on to co-direct Shut Up & Sing with Kopple seven years later). We see Peck receive his Presidential Medal of Freedom from Bill Clinton, have dinner with French President Jacques Chirac, discuss the naming of his grandchild as Harper (after Harper Lee, of course, who is referenced so often throughout that she’s almost an invisible secondary subject of the movie), and more. My favourite moment was when watching football with his family a commercial for Armageddon plays and conversation turns to Deep Impact, which unbeknownst to Gregory starred his former Mockingbird co-star Robert Duvall: “Was that another giant meteor movie?”
Duvall is actually the first person we hear spoken of as within seconds of walking on stage Peck’s typical generosity is seen as he praises Duvall. We later get to meet Mary Badham, too. Still, for all the talk of To Kill a Mockingbird, fans of Peck’s work will likely relish smaller anecdotes about The Keys of the Kingdom, Duel in the Sun, Moby Dick, The Guns of Navarone, The Boys from Brazil, and more. Nothing from The Omen, mind you, but he is open about having made his fair share of bad films. I was particularly interested in his social activism, from his acting in films with themes of race (Mockingbird) and antisemitism (Gentleman’s Agreement), his producing of anti-war The Trial of the Catonsville Nine, and his outspoken attitudes towards gun control. Most of which are sadly given no more time than revisiting the pool in Paris where his wife learned to swim or to the picking of figs from an orchard on a country estate. And, please, who could watch this movie and not want more scenes of Peck and Lauren Bacall gasbagging in a lush Manhattan apartment?
In the closing passages, Peck notes that he hopes his legacy as an actor is that audiences walked out of the theatre knowing their time was well spent. Whatever A Conversation’s limitations – it was initially made for PBS's American Masters after all before taking on a life of its own and even screening at Cannes – it felt like time well spent with a talented actor and a fine human being. And sometimes that’s all that matters.
A Conversation with Gregory Peck will air on TCM tonight, and can also be viewed on YouTube or on certain editions of the To Kill a Mockingbird DVD.
Reader Comments (12)
They are showing this on TCM tonight and I'm anxious to see it. I'll be back after watching to read the article which will be a nice addendum.
Joel, thanks for the info! I have added it to the bottom of the piece.
I LOVE him! The first time I think I fall in love with an actor is seeing him in Roman Holiday.
Gregory Peck was one of my mom's lifelong screen loves, and he easily became one of mine, too. He really seemed like the perfect man. And gawd, he was beautiful, especially when young. But not in a dangerous or mindless way - he just radiated dignity, decency, and intelligence, though I also think he had more range as an actor than people gave him credit for.
Oh, and one thing my mom always pointed about him that I must, too - he had such nice diction, especially for a non-British actor. He spoke like what he was, a gentleman.
Aw, happy birthday, Mr. Peck. First saw him in To Kill a Mockingbird, fell in love, then went back to watch his complete filmography (almost all). I videotaped Valley of Decision off some cable channel (prob the early days of TCM) and watched it over and over, along with Spellbound, Gentleman's Agreement, and Roman Holiday.
One thing the doc shows is how many people named their children after him or his character in To Kill a Mockingbird.
While I've never really loved Gregory Peck as an actor, I still greatly respect his legacy as a star, and even as a person (at least what I can gather from interviews and historical factoids). Still, as an actor I sometinmes manage to appreciate his efforts like his charming performance in Roman Holiday, or his tremednous work in The Keys to the Kingdom and To Kill a Mockingbird. In the academy award winning performance, I partivularly love the way in which his star presence of insurmountable sense of dignity becomes such an integral part of both the film's tonal balance and the character.
By the way, here's my entry for this week's Hit Me With Your Best Shot:
http://magnificaobsessao.blogspot.pt/2016/04/roman-holiday-hit-me-with-your-best-shot.html
One of the greatest film stars, and possessed of such an aura of decency and integrity. Who else would have a fighting chance against the antichrist. Personal faves: Spellbound, The Valley of Decision, Duel In the Sun, RH, The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit, Mockingbird, and The Omen, which is quite underrated.
Just finished watching this on TCM thanks to your reminder. I loved seeing his interactions with fans backstage, you could see he was really touched by how much he meant to them. Also loved seeing him hang out with Lauren Bacall, it's great that he got along so well with a lot of his co-stars like her and Audrey Hepburn. Though I do wish someone had asked him about Ava Gardner, as they had a wonderful friendship too.
Keisha, purely biased as an Australian, but I would've liked to hear something about On the Beach (another of his socially conscious works).
If Gregory Peck wasn't so American, you'd almost assume he was British. That's how regal he talks, walks, and acts.
On the Beach--so devastating. Peck, Gardner, Astaire all heartbreaking. Kramer's second best after Judgment at Nuremberg.
I really liked the article