March 28, 2022

A fascinating opportunity to spend some intimate time learning about the life and career of Sterling Hayden as he lives - aged 67 (ish) - on his dilapidated Parisian barge. Unfortunately, the film allows the subject to randomly rabbit on - frequently about alcoholism, from which he clearly suffered. Without any constructive or even vaguely penetrative direction, this becomes little more than a video diary; sometimes engaging and lucid, other time… read the rest.

A fascinating opportunity to spend some intimate time learning about the life and career of Sterling Hayden as he lives - aged 67 (ish) - on his dilapidated Parisian barge. Unfortunately, the film allows the subject to randomly rabbit on - frequently about alcoholism, from which he clearly suffered. Without any constructive or even vaguely penetrative direction, this becomes little more than a video diary; sometimes engaging and lucid, other times completely in the realms of "Grey Gardens". It is frequently too much of a monologue - it's as if Manfred Blank was too unwilling and/or intimidated to subject Hayden to anything like the degree of interrogation necessary to elicit anything meaningful from this character who undoubtedly had something to say.

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