MAKING MONTGOMERY CLIFT
US, 2019, 88 minutes, Colour/black and white.
Directed by Robert Clift and Hillary Demmon.
Montgomery Clift is not such a well-known cinema-figure in the 21st-century. Those who admire his films in the 1940s and 1950s, especially, will value this documentary. After his death, he became something of a classic gay icon, gaining him a new following which persists, including this documentary.
There is a certain amount of biographical information in this film, his family background – although, it comes as something of a shock for those who did not know, he had a twin sister of whom there is no mention here, her family not wanting to collaborate with the film – his precocious ability as a young actor, having great success on stage for many years rather than moving into film.
It was known that he was a gay man and there is discussion about his relationships and behaviour, both closeted and open.
From 1947 to 1956, he starred in several significant films, beginning with John Wayne (something of his antithesis) in Red River and The Search. Other significant films included The Heiress, A Place in the Sun, I Confess, From Here to Eternity. During the making of Raintree County, he suffered severe injuries in a car crash, especially injuries to his face with a comment that this would lead to his withdrawing from filmmaking as well as his growing dependence on alcohol and drugs.
However, it is pointed out that he made as many films after the accident as he did before, a lot of attention in this film beating given to The Young Lions and The Misfits and his reason for taking the subordinate role in Judgement at Nuremberg, which led to an Oscar nomination. There is also discussion about his role as Freud in John Huston’s film and a subsequent law case, Huston’s complaint about Cliff harming the film – with the information that actually Clift won the case.
The important thing about this film is that it is been made by his nephew, Robert Clift, collaborating with his wife. Clift’s intention was to follow through on the popular reputation that Clift had as indicated above, but make the point that there was far more to Clift than this “tragic� image. He uses a great deal of home movie material of Clift when young, during the 1950s, a picture of the ordinary Clift, often playful man, but who took his career very seriously, his choice of films, working on the dialogue with directors…
And the source of Clift’s reinterpretation is the discovery of a number of audio tapes made by his father, Brooks Clift, many of which are reproduced in this film, reinforcing the interpretation that there was much more to Clift. There is a critique of the initial biography by Robert LaGuardia? which popularised the tragic interpretation. And there are many interviews with the subsequent biographer, Patricia Bosworth (who had also hoped that there would be a film made about Clift but it never eventuated).
So, this is a most interesting film for film buffs, clips, conversations about the films (though, surprisingly, a number of films not mentioned, including Suddenly, Last Summer, Lonelyhearts and Wild River). And, unsurprisingly, this documentary had quite some circulation in festivals of Queer Films.
