Film Review: Hal (2018)
When one speaks of Hollywood's Golden Age, it is usually understood to refer to the classical period of the 1930s and 1940s. Some cinephiles, however, might be inclined to place the golden age of the American dream factory a little later, starting three decades on, in the 1970s. At that time, more or less every cinema in the world was experiencing a creative boom, often interpreted as a reflection of the turbulent social changes of the previous decade. Hollywood was no exception, where the old order, based on moguls and major studios, had vanished, and a new one had yet to be established. This gap was filled by a generation of exceptionally talented young filmmakers, willing to take creative and other risks and unbound by the strict rules of the past, which resulted in a series of diverse and exceptionally high-calibre works, many of which would enter the anthologies of the greatest films ever made. That generation became known as New Hollywood, and today many of its most prominent figures, like Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas and Spielberg, have become icons of a new establishment, in many ways not at all different from the one they so successfully shattered in their youth.
However, none of these names embodies the rebellious, iconoclastic and ‘artistic’ essence of New Hollywood in their life and work quite like Hal Ashby, whose life and career are the subject of Amy Scott's documentary, Hal. Ashby, perhaps more than any other New Hollywood filmmaker, fit the stereotype of the rebellious baby boomer—whether through the image of a long-haired, bearded hippy, a lifestyle dominated by marijuana and occasionally some ‘harder’ drugs, or above all through the content of his most famous and successful films, which in the 1970s in one way or another grappled with the economic-political order, morals and customs of the America of the time, exposing their underbelly and offering an alternative through celebrating the rebellious individual. It is therefore somewhat ironic that Ashby actually belonged to an earlier generation and that he began his film career in so-called Old Hollywood as a labourer and later as an editor who would ultimately master his craft working with some of the greatest masters in the classic studios. He only managed to establish himself as a great filmmaker with his bizarre black comedy Harold and Maude in 1971, after which followed a series of successful, praised, award-winning works—now considered classics—concluded in 1979 with the equally black and bizarre comedy Being There.
Amy Scott, who like Ashby began her career as an editor, uses traditional methods of biographical documentary in her film dedicated to her great inspiration, including those you might expect when its subject is a figure from the world of cinema. Thus Ashby's œuvre is illustrated through inserts from his most famous films, conversations with colleagues, friends, collaborators and younger admirers—among whom perhaps the best-known today is the successful producer Judd Apatow. Scott also makes use of Ashby's own words, whether through preserved audio recordings or through letters and official correspondence read by the young actor Ben Foster. Scott seeks to interweave the story of his Hollywood career with a depiction of his early days, marked by growing up in the provinces, family tragedies, poverty and drifting from job to job, suggesting that it was precisely then, upon encountering the dark side of the American Dream, that he acquired lasting sympathy for all those who were misunderstood, discriminated against or oppressed because of a different gender, skin colour, religion, lifestyle or opinion that strayed from the ‘mainstream’, and how he showed solidarity with and sought to promote precisely these people through his work.
Ashby is also portrayed as a deeply principled man, willing to fight for his own vision to the very end, which is why he came into ever greater conflict with the newly formed Hollywood establishment of the 1980s and, because of its lack of understanding and malice, his films in that decade met with no success—culminating in the 1986 flop 8 Million Ways to Die, after which he was blacklisted three years before his tragic and premature death. Scott clearly has hagiographic intentions, although at moments she tries to offer at least a whiff of objectivity, so viewers have the opportunity to see some not exactly flattering details from his life, including a child abandoned in early youth, five marriages that ended in divorce, and also suggestions that some of the somewhat harder drugs may have had something to do with the fact that his career and life ended in such a sad way.
More attentive viewers, however, might notice that a great deal is missing from this film, including interviews with some of Ashby's most famous collaborators, such as Jack Nicholson and Warren Beatty, whose absence is compensated for by three-decade-old archival footage of speeches given at a memorial for the deceased Ashby. Hal also relies heavily on a nostalgic approach to the 1970s, which for ageing baby boomers represents a golden age, and it is questionable how much effect it will have on younger viewers. On the other hand, this film is useful for those who have already acquired cinephile tendencies, or for those interested in the history of Hollywood, which in one relatively brief period looked more spectacular and rosy than anything that came after it.
RATING: 6/10 (++)
(Note: The text in the original Croatian version is available here.)
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