I don’t know about you, but it seems like everyone is getting a documentary these days. There are docs about Liza Minnelli, Steve Martin, Céline Dion, Jennifer Lopez, and the Brat Pack.
On July 13th, we are getting one more on HBO. Academy Award® winning actress and multi-decade movie star, Faye Dunaway, recounts the triumphs and challenges of her illustrious career with frank candor in FAYE, the first feature documentary about the Hollywood legend. Through honest reflection, complemented by insight from colleagues and friends, Dunaway contextualizes her life and filmography, laying bare her struggles with mental health while confronting the double standards she was subjected to as a woman in Hollywood.
Growing up as Dorothy Faye Dunaway, the army child of a father who struggled with alcoholism and raised predominantly by her single mother, Dunaway escaped into the world of acting, finding mentors in director Elia Kazan and playwright William Alfred, whose play “Hogan’s Goat” helped launch her career in 1965. In FAYE, the three-time Academy Award®-nominated actor – she would win for 1976’s “Network” – explores the personal trajectory of her life in concert with her storied career. Many of her film roles seem to reflect aspects of Faye’s own personality and the social climate in which they were made, including “Bonnie and Clyde,” “Chinatown,” and “Network,” a film which drew criticism, but also praise, for Dunaway’s portrayal of a headstrong, unsympathetic television producer – criticisms that were also leveled at Dunaway for her reputation as a “difficult” artist to work with. Speaking candidly about her struggles with alcoholism and bi-polar disorder, her love affairs and the joys of motherhood, Dunaway also reflects on her role in “Mommie Dearest,” the infamous 1981 movie that was a popular success but threatened to destroy her career. With her on-screen elegance and sense of fashion, she became a style icon, and continues to inspire and influence fashion trends today. Fiercely independent and determined to develop her own professional opportunities into the 1990s and 2000s, but at times thwarted by her own reputation and demons, FAYE serves as a reminder of Dunaway’s singular ability to inspire generations of filmmakers and actors with her enduring screen charisma and film oeuvre.
I grew up with Mommy Dearest and am not interested in this. But watch, it will be the most interesting one of them all.
