The Last Movie Stars | |
---|---|
Genre | Docuseries |
Created by | Emily Wachtel |
Written by | Stewart Stern |
Directed by | Ethan Hawke |
Starring | |
Music by | Hamilton Leithauser |
Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 1 |
No. of episodes | 6 (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producers |
|
Editor | Barry Poltermann |
Production companies |
|
Original release | |
Network | HBO Max |
Release | July 21, 2022 |
The Last Movie Stars is an American documentary miniseries created by Emily Wachtel and directed by Ethan Hawke. All six episodes of the series were released on HBO Max on July 21, 2022. [1] After discovering transcripts of interviews conducted at Paul Newman's request for an abandoned memoir project, a daughter of Newman and Joanne Woodward asked Hawke to tell their story, personally and as artists. Hawke assembled actors to read pieces of the interviews, conducted and edited by writer Stewart Stern, including interviews with Newman and Woodward. The marriage spanned 50 years and was often cited as one of the great Hollywood successful marriages and love stories. [2]
The series takes an unusual approach to telling Newman and Woodward's story, unfolding decades of material and dramatizing interview transcriptions to create a narrative around their relationship and evolving acting careers. Hawke described their influence in shifting acting styles to a more nuanced and natural approach: "Their generation changed American acting. What happened in the fifties with the Actors Studio with Elia Kazan and Tennessee Williams is a pivot point in the history of performance. It radically changed the way that we tell stories and we're still reacting to it." [3] Paul Newman was a member of and studied with the Actors Studio. [4] Joanne Woodward also studied at the Actors Studio and worked with Sanford Meisner in the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, [5] [6] where they met many of those interviewed for this documentary.
Many of the older interviews with friends and artistic collaborators are read by the cast over archival footage. Recent interviews with all three of their daughters as well as Sally Field and Martin Scorsese are included. [7]
The interviews were the basis for Newman's posthumously published 2022 memoir, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.
The players
Original interviews
No. | Title | Directed by [8] | Original release date [8] |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Chapter One: Cosmic Orphans" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
2 | "Chapter Two: A Star Is Born" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
3 | "Chapter Three: The Legend of Paul Leonard Newman" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
4 | "Chapter Four: Paying the Price" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
5 | "Chapter Five: Against the Sky" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
6 | "Chapter Six: Luck is an Art" | Ethan Hawke | July 21, 2022 |
Along with Martin Scorsese and Courtney Sexton, Amy Entelis also served as executive producer. The docuseries was produced by Emily Wachtel and Lisa Long Adler of Nook House Productions, Ryan Hawke of Under the Influence Productions, and Adam Gibbs. There was no original cinematography as the film's visuals consist entirely of existing elements (such as film clips and photos) combined with Zoom recordings recorded by Hawke. Barry Poltermann edited all six episodes. Hamilton Leithauser composed the original score, and the song "Beautiful People, Beautiful Problems" by Lana Del Rey and Stevie Nicks is featured prominently in the trailer. [9]
Episode 1 of The Last Movie Stars was first screened at the SXSW Film Festival on March 14, 2022. Episodes 3 and 4 were screened at the Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2022. [10] CNN+ was originally set to stream the series but after it dissolved, HBO Max became its new home. It was released on HBO Max on July 21, 2022, with all six episodes appearing at once.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 100% approval rating with an average rating of 9.2/10, based on 21 critic reviews. The website's critics consensus reads, "The Last Movie Stars delivers the goods as a revealing retrospective of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward's romance, but director Ethan Hawke elevates this docuseries into a revelatory exploration of marriage and stardom."
The Guardian called the docuseries "a case study in fandom practiced properly," noting that the documentary series deals with Newman's failings as a parent and his alcoholism, while at the same time taking a worshipful attitude toward its subjects. Its review observed that Hawke "makes no effort to minimize his own presence under some pretense of fly-on-the-wall objectivity. As much as his extensive research project exists to chronicle the lives and works of a Hollywood power couple in a league of their own, he also digests the narrative at hand by examining his own relationship to it." [11]
The New York Times television critic Mike Hale called the series "charming, entertaining and, for the eyes, addictive." But he added that "as the story gets darker over the years, the series loses some of its verve, and it starts to feel like a forced march through the two stars' movie and TV catalogs. Hawke doesn't seem as comfortable, or as interested, whenever the subject moves away from acting." The poor quality of many of their movies, he asserted, is glossed over. [12]
Eli Herschel Wallach was an American film, television, and stage actor from New York City. Known for his character actor roles, his entertainment career spanned over six decades. He received a BAFTA Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He also was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1988 and received the Academy Honorary Award in 2010.
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, racing driver, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. He was the recipient of numerous awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, three Golden Globe Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Silver Bear, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.
Ethan Green Hawke is an American actor, author and film director. He made his film debut in Explorers (1985), before making a breakthrough performance in Dead Poets Society (1989). Hawke starred alongside Julie Delpy in Richard Linklater's Before trilogy from 1995 to 2013. Hawke received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Training Day (2001) and Boyhood (2014) and two for Best Adapted Screenplay for co-writing Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013). Other notable roles include in Reality Bites (1994), Gattaca (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007), Maggie's Plan (2015), First Reformed (2017), The Black Phone (2021) and The Northman (2022).
Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward is an American retired actress. A star since the Golden Age of Hollywood, Woodward made her career breakthrough in the 1950s and earned esteem and respect playing complex women with a characteristic nuance and depth of character. She is one of the first film stars to have an equal presence in television. Her accolades include an Academy Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, a British Academy Film Award, three Golden Globe Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. She is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and the oldest living Best Actress Oscar-winner.
Sydney Irwin Pollack was an American film director, producer and actor. Pollack is known for directing commercially and critically acclaimed studio films. Over his forty year career he received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards and a Primetime Emmy Award as well as nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and six BAFTA Awards.
Lee Strasberg was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school," and, in 1966, was involved in the creation of Actors Studio West in Los Angeles.
Martin Ritt was an American director, producer, and actor, active in film, theatre and television. He was known mainly as an auteur of socially-conscious dramas and literary adaptations, described by Stanley Kauffmann as "one of the most underrated American directors, superbly competent and quietly imaginative."
Martin Henry Balsam was an American actor. He had a prolific career in character roles in film, in theatre, and on television. An early member of the Actors Studio, he began his career on the New York stage, winning a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play for Robert Anderson's You Know I Can't Hear You When the Water's Running (1968). He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in A Thousand Clowns (1965).
Sanford "Sandy" Meisner was an American actor and acting teacher who developed an approach to acting instruction that is now known as the Meisner technique. While Meisner was exposed to method acting at the Group Theatre, his approach differed markedly in that he completely abandoned the use of affective memory, a distinct characteristic of method acting. Meisner maintained an emphasis on "the reality of doing", which was the foundation of his approach.
Inside the Actors Studio is an American talk show that airs on Ovation. The series premiered in 1994 on Bravo where it aired for 22 seasons and was hosted by James Lipton from its premiere until 2018. It is taped at the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University's New York City campus.
The Meisner technique is an approach to acting developed by American theatre practitioner Sanford Meisner.
Richard Warren Schickel was an American film historian, journalist, author, documentarian, and film and literary critic. He was a film critic for Time from 1965–2010, and also wrote for Life and the Los Angeles Times Book Review. His last writings about film were for Truthdig.
The Long, Hot Summer is a 1958 American drama film starring Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Anthony Franciosa, and Orson Welles. It was directed by Martin Ritt, with a screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank Jr., based in part on three works by William Faulkner: the 1931 novella "Spotted Horses", the 1939 short story "Barn Burning" and the 1940 novel The Hamlet. The title is taken from The Hamlet, as Book Three is called "The Long Summer". Some characters, as well as tone, were inspired by Tennessee Williams' 1955 play, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a film adaptation of which– also starring Newman – was released 5 months later.
Paul Franklin Dano is an American actor. He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in L.I.E. (2001) and gained wider recognition for playing a troubled teenager in Little Miss Sunshine (2006). For playing identical twins in Paul Thomas Anderson's period drama There Will Be Blood (2007), he was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Zoe Swicord Kazan is an American actress and screenwriter. She made her acting debut in the film Swordswallowers and Thin Men (2003) and later appeared in films such as The Savages (2007), Revolutionary Road (2008), and It's Complicated (2009). She starred in Happythankyoumoreplease (2010), Meek's Cutoff (2010), Ruby Sparks (2012), and The F Word (2013). In 2014, she appeared in the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge, for which she received an Emmy nomination. She portrayed Emily Gordon in the film The Big Sick (2017), and in 2018 appeared in the Coen Brothers film The Ballad of Buster Scruggs in the episode "The Gal Who Got Rattled".
Melissa Stewart Newman, also known as Lissy Newman, is an American artist, singer and former actress who appeared in the 1990 film Mr. & Mrs. Bridge, and at the 30th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards.
Emily Wachtel is a producer and screenwriter. She originated and produced The Last Movie Stars, the recently released six-part documentary film which chronicles the lives and careers of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. The film was directed by Ethan Hawke and executive produced by Martin Scorsese. Wachtel also co-wrote, produced and acted in the semi-autobiographical film Lucky Them starring Toni Collette, Thomas Haden Church, Johnny Depp, and Oliver Platt.
This article is the filmography of Paul Newman
"The 80 Yard Run" is an American television play broadcast on January 16, 1958, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward co-starred. Franklin Schaffner directed, and David Shaw wrote the teleplay as an adaptation of a story written by his brother Irwin Shaw.