Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Unlock the Editor’s Digest for freeRoula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.Bette Davis was once asked in an interview who the worst person she ever worked with was in her career. “Faye Dunaway” came the near-instantaneous response. “She’s just totally impossible.” Several decades later, we get a first-hand insight into what Davis meant as we watch a restless, 83-year-old Dunaway prepare to shoot a scene for an HBO documentary film. “I’m not happy with anything here,” she huffs at the crew before eventually cracking a knowing smile. “Now you see what it is about me . . . not easy.”So begins Faye, a new retrospective of an actor as famed for her on-screen passion and poise as for her off-camera temper and petulance. Directed by Laurent Bouzereau — a documentary filmmaker who knows Dunaway personally as a friend of her son, Liam — this might well have been little more than a sanitised puff piece. Instead what we get is a candid, reflective film which gives Dunaway the space to confront her difficulties as well as revel in her triumphs.There are plenty of the latter. Between her breakout role in 1967’s Bonnie and Clyde and her Oscar-winning turn in 1976’s trenchant satire Network, Dunaway became one of the most consistent yet versatile performers of her generation. But while this 90-minute runtime proves insufficient to delve into the finer details of each part, choice clips showcase her steeliness and magnetism. Anecdotes about working with Roman Polanski (“the terror”) and Jack Nicholson on Chinatown, and a doomed affair with Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, do feel abridged, however. Following her turn in Mommie Dearest, a hammy 1981 biopic about Joan Crawford, the roles dried up and the alcohol flowed. Dunaway movingly describes her life-long struggle with depression and bipolar disorder. This, she says, is a “reason” for her erratic behaviour but not an “excuse”. In doing so, she doesn’t shirk accountability or invalidate the experiences of co-stars who say they feared her, but invites a reappraisal of the sexist notion that she was a belligerent prima donna.The overall tone is bittersweet; Dunaway’s hardships are balanced with sense of acceptance about how things played out plus her love for her son — who appears alongside her in touching joint interviews. But though she may voice her displeasure about her chair, the lighting, the bottled water, it’s clear that Dunaway is, at least with regard to the things that matter, “much happier now”.★★★☆☆Streaming on Now in the UK and Max in the US
