Documentarian Pierre-François Gaudry salutes iconic actor-director Paul Newman. His enduring career and legacy really deserve more than just an hour, but this rates as a respectful retrospective.
Scion of a family of Cleveland-area sporting-goods/outdoors merchants (Paul just did not find the "romance" in retail, he says in interview clips), Newman turned to acting as a fluke; it was a recreational outlet for him during somewhat rowdy student days at a small Ohio college. Fired with the potential of the stage—and, later, screen and TV —the young Newman studied at the Actors Studio.
His blue-eyed good looks and quiet intensity won comparisons to contemporary "Method" sensation Marlon Brando, and it was a sort of Brando clone that Hollywood served up Newman in his celluloid debut, an ill-remembered 1955 Bible epic, The Silver Chalice (from the Thomas Costain novel), a picture the future superstar famously disdained.
Newman found more rewards in subsequent solid dramas, grownup westerns, and literary adaptations: Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), The Left-Handed Gun (1958), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (for which he was Oscar-nominated for 1958), Exodus (1960) and many others. Gaudry skims past popular hits like The Sting, The Towering Inferno, and Slap Shot to examine lesser-known titles and interesting misfires in Newman's filmography: the jazz feature Paris Blues (1961), the screwball comedy Rally Round the Flag Boys! (1958) and Robert Altman's apocalyptic Quintet (1979).
As a person, Newman is remembered as a low-key but ever-polite and prepared professional, who stoically endured showbiz celebrity and preferred his privacy. Associates and interviewees include actors James Naughton, Ellen Burstyn, and Brigitte Fossey, and director Ron Shelton—who while making Blaze (1989), found himself coaching a shy Newman through the male sex symbol's first on-camera lovemaking.
Yes, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid rates a generous mention, though there is no input from co-star Robert Redford, author-friend A.E. Hotchner, or, especially, Newman's second wife and longtime creative partner Joanne Woodward (who figured prominently among the five well-received movies that Newman himself directed, starting with Rachel, Rachel, in 1968).
Newman's offscreen passion as a serious race-car driver (fuel for an entire nonfiction feature, 2015's Winning: The Racing Life of Paul Newman) is barely mentioned; more is said about his progressive politics, charity works and the foundation Newman and Woodward started in the name of actor-son Scott Newman, a drug-overdose fatality in 1978.
One likes to think Newman himself would have approved this brief but fairly comprehensive overview. A well-recommended title for general biography and movie/media-oriented collections.