The Kid Stays in the Picture
**1/2
Cinema
Reviews - Week of February 28, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 15. USA.
91 minutes. Directed by Nanette Burstein, Brett Morgen. Screenplay by Brett
Morgen; from the book by Robert Evans. A documentary featuring Robert Evans,
Norma Shearer, Francis Ford Coppola, Dustin Hoffman, Roman
Polanski.
Robert Evans is a fascinating guy, there can be
little doubt about that. He worked as a child actor in the 1930s, became
a successful women's clothing manufacturer along with his brother in the
'50s, lucked his way back into acting and craftily snuck himself into production
by the late 1960s. When Gulf and Western took over Paramount, Evans became
head of the studio, and took it back to the top with a string of hits including
"The Odd Couple", "Rosemary's Baby", "The Godfather", "Love Story" and
"Chinatown".
Evans defied all the trade papers, made Paramount
the most exciting studio in Hollywood in both commercial and artistic terms,
and managed to get himself hitched to Ali McGraw. Then came the joys of snow
-- Evans was arrested by the DEA for a massive cocaine buy, signalling the
start of his downfall. McGraw went off with Steve McQueen. Evans attempted
a comeback with "The Cotton Club", which was beset by legal troubles and
rumours of behind-the-scenes murder, and went on to be a flop at the box
office.
"The Kid Stays in the Picture",
a documentary based on Evans's book of the same name, recounts all this with
Evans on the voice-over. He leaves out plenty of details, including the rest
of his five marriages, but bias is hardly the problem of the movie -- Evans
is open about weaselling into the industry, getting thrown out of it through
being a sap and generally having taken one helluva goddamn
dive.
The movie is fairly absorbing, because tales of
rise and fall usually are, especially when their photographic evidence is
this glitzy. Across the screen comes archive footage and movie clips, and
old photographs whose elements have been detached from each other and subtly
animated into moving pictures, with backgrounds dreamily drifting behind
the people inhabiting them.
I find it hard to give "The Kid Stays in the Picture"
a good review, though, because it's not very accomplished as a piece of cinema.
Documentaries can work on the big screen when they have something grand to
show, or when they're best seen with an audience, like last year's populist
rabble-rouser "Bowling for Columbine". This film would be better on television
-- it's interesting, but it offers no surprises.
The narration of Evans is at once the movie's
strength and flaw. His voice is leathery suavity, combining the tones of
the battered warrior as well as those of the hey-hey self-assure businessman
who can skip every queue in town. It's got personality. But sometimes it
rambles without the right stops for emphasis, and mumbles too lowly, and
there are stretches when we have a hard time following the things being said.
The kid should re-record the picture.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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