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Audrey (Film Review)
Watched recently: The documentary "Audrey", about Audrey Hepburn, chiefly produced, it seems by her son and granddaughter. It's definitely on the hagiographic side. Mind you, it's not that I don't believe them Audrey Hepburn was a wonderful person, I believe this completely, and the film certainly gets across both radiance she had and the famous fashion sense. There's plenty of interview material gathered from Audrey Hepburn herself over the decades in various media, and in addition from the above named two family members, we hear from some friends, and on the professional side from Peter Bogdanovich. But leaving aside the choice of movies to show excerpts from (mainly Roman Holiday, Breakfast at Tiffany's, My Fair Lady) left out some of the most interesting ones (The Children's Hour, A Nun's Story, Robin and Marian), I don't think the film trusts its subject enough. Everyone who gets to speak says how wonderful Audrey was, and how gifted. The closest the movie comes to including criticism is when one of the narrators tells us that "some people" thought Audrey had "stolen" the part of Eliza Doolittle from Julie Andrews, how Jack Warner (whose decision this casting actually was) didn't believe Ms Hepburn could do her own singing and therefore had her dubbed by Marnie Nixon, which devastated her. And as you can see, the criticism here is rightfully aimed at Warner. Here's a controversial idea: Emma Thompson some years ago very controversially said Audrey Hepburn as Eliza was way too twee for her, nothing to do with her singing, she meant the performance. Include this critique, let someone argue against it, and presto, a non-hagiographic scene.
(Though what I really would have liked best was someone interviewing Shirley MacLaine and getting some quotes on her and Audrey Hepburn working on "The Children's Hour" together.)
Where the film excels is Audrey Hepburn's harrowing childhood and youth. There, too, was a gap, but I suspect it might be unsolvable, if we don't have a statement from AH herself on the subject. The circumstances are these: both her parents were fascists. Mom wrote an article of how Hitler was the most wonderful, Dad joined the Black Shirts. Both, who were already divorced at the time, agreed on sending child!Audrey to the Netherlands with the last air plane from England when the war started, believing the Netherlands would remain neutral and safe as is WW I. Of course, next thing you know, the Netherlands are occupied by the German army. Young Audrey witnesses the full brutality of German occupation, smuggles Resistance messages in her shoes and along with most of the country is severely malnutrioned when the war ends. Her much later work for UNICEF is directly connected to this.
So, of course, I was burning to know whether she ever confronted her parents post war re: their fascism. But there was nothing about this in the rest of the movie. There was plenty of how the fact her father had left the family when Audrey was six caused her life long abandonment trauma, especially since he never bothered to contact her again, and she only found him once more via the Red Cross in the 1960s, at which point he still didn't want a relationship but did accept her financial support. Which she gave. The movie had a lot to say about this sense of being unloved, not worthy of love, influenced her relationship with men, but nothing, nada, zero, whether her being a victim of and fighter against fascism vs both parents being fascists ever came up, and the storyteller in me was frustrated by this. However, like I said: perhaps she never talked about it (as opposed to talking about how she never wanted her children to lack a parent the way she had), in which case the movie could not tell me.
What I also was curious about was the total absence of her second son, Luca, both in the sense of him not being interviewed and him not being talked about once it's established he existed. What's not said always tends to make was intrigued as what's said.
All this nitpicks not withstanding: as a love declaration to Audrey Hepburn and evidence she could lit up the screen, both when acting and as herself in interviews, this film certainly worked, as well as showing her being a brave and compassionate person who chose to channel the terrible things she witnessed and experienced by helping others. Just one thing I blame the director for which really did not work: the three ballet dancers supposed to represent Audrey's inner self at different points in her life. (She had wanted to become a ballet dancer, not an actress, and had studied for it.) They came across not as poetic imagery, but, dare I say it, twee.
(Though what I really would have liked best was someone interviewing Shirley MacLaine and getting some quotes on her and Audrey Hepburn working on "The Children's Hour" together.)
Where the film excels is Audrey Hepburn's harrowing childhood and youth. There, too, was a gap, but I suspect it might be unsolvable, if we don't have a statement from AH herself on the subject. The circumstances are these: both her parents were fascists. Mom wrote an article of how Hitler was the most wonderful, Dad joined the Black Shirts. Both, who were already divorced at the time, agreed on sending child!Audrey to the Netherlands with the last air plane from England when the war started, believing the Netherlands would remain neutral and safe as is WW I. Of course, next thing you know, the Netherlands are occupied by the German army. Young Audrey witnesses the full brutality of German occupation, smuggles Resistance messages in her shoes and along with most of the country is severely malnutrioned when the war ends. Her much later work for UNICEF is directly connected to this.
So, of course, I was burning to know whether she ever confronted her parents post war re: their fascism. But there was nothing about this in the rest of the movie. There was plenty of how the fact her father had left the family when Audrey was six caused her life long abandonment trauma, especially since he never bothered to contact her again, and she only found him once more via the Red Cross in the 1960s, at which point he still didn't want a relationship but did accept her financial support. Which she gave. The movie had a lot to say about this sense of being unloved, not worthy of love, influenced her relationship with men, but nothing, nada, zero, whether her being a victim of and fighter against fascism vs both parents being fascists ever came up, and the storyteller in me was frustrated by this. However, like I said: perhaps she never talked about it (as opposed to talking about how she never wanted her children to lack a parent the way she had), in which case the movie could not tell me.
What I also was curious about was the total absence of her second son, Luca, both in the sense of him not being interviewed and him not being talked about once it's established he existed. What's not said always tends to make was intrigued as what's said.
All this nitpicks not withstanding: as a love declaration to Audrey Hepburn and evidence she could lit up the screen, both when acting and as herself in interviews, this film certainly worked, as well as showing her being a brave and compassionate person who chose to channel the terrible things she witnessed and experienced by helping others. Just one thing I blame the director for which really did not work: the three ballet dancers supposed to represent Audrey's inner self at different points in her life. (She had wanted to become a ballet dancer, not an actress, and had studied for it.) They came across not as poetic imagery, but, dare I say it, twee.