First there was The Last Dance, now there’s Beckham, Sly and Arnold. The number of stars who have biographical documentaries made about themselves is increasing noticeably. And the thing is: they usually produce those films themselves. How objective are they then?
Calum Marsh24 november 2023, 03:00
At one point during Beckham’s filming, director Fisher Stevens walked into the kitchen and saw David Beckham doing the dishes. Stevens immediately grabbed his camera. A former star football player and multi-millionaire who does his own chores: that revealing moment had to be on screen. But as soon as Beckham spotted the camera, he laid it all down.
Because Beckham – the four-part docuseries about David Beckham, is a co-production of Beckham’s own company Studio 99 – the Man United icon basically did not have to have anything filmed that he did not feel comfortable with. But Stevens persisted. “I thought, David, please, this is who you are, this is what you do,” the director said in a recent interview. “We often had to negotiate, nothing was just okay. It took time.” Stevens tried to persuade Beckham for more than a year, until he finally gave in: Beckham can be seen on Netflix with the washing-up scene.
An image of David and Victoria Beckham in ‘Beckham’. Image Netflix
Documentary filmmakers have an inherently charged relationship with the people they film, because what makes a compelling biopic – a candid, penetrating portrait of an individual in all his complexity – almost always goes against the interests of the person who is the subject of it. And yet: in the wake of The Last Dance (2020), the ten-part docuseries about Michael Jordan that Netflix made together with Jordan’s own company Jump 23, numerous other athletes, musicians and film stars lined up to bring their own legacy to the small screen. Which raises an obvious question: if a celebrity commissions and co-produces a documentary about himself, can that documentary ever be balanced and objective?
An image of Michael Jordan from ‘The Last Dance’. Image Netflix
“I know people say, ‘Oh, his company was involved,’” Fisher Stevens said. “But the Beckhams genuinely wanted to tell the best, most honest story possible. They really didn’t want to make a Beckham commercial.” Yet Stevens himself was initially skeptical about the idea that the film would be made under the auspices of Beckham himself. He was not interested in a “bombastic hagiography”. Ultimately, he agreed, on the condition that he would have the final say on the final edit and that Beckham would be willing to “vend himself into uncomfortable territory.” Stevens: “The key was to stay true to my vision and not bow to theirs. The surprising and beautiful thing is that they trusted us.”
The New Yorker cited Beckham’s behind-the-scenes role as a possible reason why the film “sidesteps some rather questionable player choices,” such as his ambassadorship to Qatar, the 2022 World Cup host nation that has been heavily criticized for its human rights abuses. At the same time, this partiality is “part of the power of the documentary”, because it shows how Beckham sees himself, according to The New Yorker.
Control
Thom Zimny, director of the new Sylvester Stallone documentary Sly on Netflix, argues that the skepticism about these types of films stems from a fundamental misconception: “If the person you’re making a documentary about is also on the producing team, I think that’s ensures a certain projection on the film, that there is control,” he says. “While making Sly there was never a moment where I felt Stallone’s influence. There was never a moment when he said: ‘This is the position you should take’, ‘you should not talk about these topics’.”
The criticism of Sly is that the documentary is too forgiving of Stallone. The Guardian wrote that “puff pieces don’t get much puffier than this” and criticized Zimny’s “annoying servility”. Although Stallone is open about his past and his feelings, the documentary does not pay much attention to his fiascos in the film world. Failures like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot are glossed over and few of the people who speak have anything negative to say about Sylvester Stallone.
Zimny insists he was under no obligation to submit to Stallone. “He never let us know in advance that something was not possible,” he says. “He looked at what we made and always said he was very happy with it. We worked with someone who gave us the space to make the film better.”
The documentary shows that Stallone often tinkered with scenarios, changed endings and improvised dialogues during the shooting of a film. According to Zimny, that desire for control did not emerge during the making of the documentary: “I readily admit that Sly’s story contradicts the experience I had as a documentary maker.”
Jennifer Flavin and Sylvester Stallone attend the world premiere of ‘Sly’ during the Toronto International Film Festival at Roy Thomson Hall, September 16, 2023.Image Getty Images for Netflix
Self-mythologization
According to Pete Nicks, director of the recent Apple TV+ documentary Stephen Curry: Underrated, celebrity is “like a veneer” and “documentarians have to try to get underneath that veneer.” Nicks says stars inevitably have managers and other representatives and it can be challenging for filmmakers “to work in such a context and still find authenticity”.
Unanimous, the production company of American basketball player Stephen Curry, was one of the film’s sponsors, but Curry himself did not act as a producer. Nicks says he had some creative differences with the company over the direction the film would take. For example, Curry’s collaborators dreamed of interviews with Barack Obama and Drake, while Nicks only wanted interviewees who fit organically into the film.
Yet it is difficult to deny that the documentary paints an overwhelmingly positive image of Curry. Underrated is a constant reminder that Curry has managed to create his own destiny, overcome doubts and achieve great things despite many reservations. Even the title seems self-mythologizing. “The idea that Curry remains an underdog is hilarious considering his production company is called Unanimous, so named because Curry was the only player in NBA history to be unanimously voted winner of the Most Valuable Player Award,” wrote The New Republic.
Nicks says it was his idea to portray Curry in such a way that the athlete “didn’t come to me and say that’s how the story should be told.” Nicks: “I hesitated about that title for a while, but the better I got to know him, the better I understood his story and the more sense it made.”
Stephen Curry attends the Underrated Tour at International Christian University in Tokyo on June 23, 2019.Image WireImage
Mistakes and controversies
One of the few recent documentaries about stars that was not produced by the star himself is the three-part Arnold, about bodybuilder, actor and former governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Every documentary filmmaker is different and I don’t want to speak for anyone else, but I think if you really want a successful and compelling documentary about a celebrity, you have to have objectivity,” said director Lesley Chilcott. “You want to have the opportunity to say what I said to Arnold: ‘No topic should be left undiscussed, and that includes all the things you read about in the press. We’re not going to beat around the bush.’”
Arnold confronts Schwarzenegger with many of his mistakes and controversies, including the 1996 affair he had with his housekeeper and the sexual misconduct allegations that surfaced about him several years ago. These aren’t things you would want to cover in a commercial; this documentary raises difficult questions that make Schwarzenegger’s legacy more complex. Chilcott says the freedom to address these issues was part of the bargain when she agreed to make the documentary. Schwarzenegger also had no creative control.
An image of Arnold Schwarzenegger in ‘Arnold’.Image Courtesy of Netflix
Chilcott: “Did he want to talk about these issues? No, he didn’t want that. Did he want to keep putting it off once he agreed to it? Yes, he wanted that. But Arnold was smart enough to realize he had to talk about this. He knew it had to be done and was wise enough to understand that the documentary could not be black and white, could not only be about his successes.” United Press International wrote that Schwarzenegger’s willingness to address his mistakes and take responsibility for his actions “makes the series more than a glorifying promotional film.”
As Chilcott put it to Schwarzenegger himself: “We’re going to have to talk about your failures. When you have so much success, your failures are an important part of it.”
Beckham, Sly and Arnold are still on Netflix, Stephen Curry: Underrated on Apple TV+.
© The New York Times
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