This week FIELD OF STREAMS features Netflix making its case for one of the legal world’s most polarizing players
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Some real-life figures are burdened with personalities so big that they cannot help but at times come across as parodies of themselves in the public eye. This is certainly true of famed attorney Gloria Allred, whose tireless work as a champion of civil rights has been overshadowed by her penchant for flashy powersuits, press conferences, and a notoriously fiery attitude. The first time I had ever heard of Allred was when she made a cameo as herself in the hilarious comedy Rat Race. Decked in a red suit, the movie portrayed Allred as a glorified ambulance chaser by showing her at the scene of the kinds of accidents that win huge settlements. Seeing Wayne Knight spot her from afar in a scene and proclaim: “Oh, s**t! Gloria Allred,” said so much about the image Allred had attained and how willing she was to send it up. If Rat Race saw Allred’s ability to laugh at her own persona, the new Netflix documentary Seeing Allred displays a willingness to show what’s beyond it.
Filmed over a period of three years, Seeing Allred traces the attorney’s life from her humble beginnings as the only child of a working class Jewish family in Philadelphia, to her brief stint as an English teacher in an all-black school, to her struggles as a single mother, to her ascent as one of the top attorneys in Los Angeles. Through it all, the film’s subject both shoots down and unashamedly validates many of the public’s notions of her while also exploring what led to her tireless and ongoing work as a fighter for women’s rights.
Seeing Allred has everything you want in a documentary; a dynamic figure, a bevy of opinions concerning them and an unflinching look at the past which helped shaped them. Virtually every topic dealing with Allred’s life is discussed by the woman herself, usually without batting an eye. There’s the tragic story of her first husband’s bout with bipolar disorder which caused him to take his own life and the various milestones which helped shape her career and reputation. Chief among them are her appearances as a young feminist lawyer on The Dinah Shore Show and her sit-in at a D.A.’s office with a group of mother’s who were owed back child support, which resulted in her being hauled off to jail. Allred stirringly manages to show some genuine vulnerability when discussing the dark incident which fueled her life’s work and her inability to make sense of it to this day. The film also takes advantage of the events surrounding the three year period which comprised Seeing Allred’s filming, including the Bill Cosby scandal, Hillary Clinton’s defeat and the legalization of same-sex marriage. Through each of these moments, Allred remains a presence signifying both her trademark strength mixed with a quiet dignity. She gives Cosby accusers (most of whom were too late to file charges) press conferences as platforms to tell their stories, responds to an aggressive Donald Trump accuser with grace and composure and tries not to weep the moment a lesbian couple (longtime friends of Allred) are finally granted a marriage license. Allred never excuses her celebrity status, but instead proudly shows how she uses it to bring attention to the issues facing women, minorities and homosexuals in today’s world. Some may walk away from Seeing Allred still believing the woman at its center to be a loud, publicity-hungry figure out to boost her own strategic agenda. However as one of the doc’s commentators asks: “Haven’t you met any men like that?”
Here are a few other documentaries featuring iconic figures which manage to get to the heart and soul of the person behind the image:
Notable for the cameos by superstar models like Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, Unzipped is actually one of the most telling and provocative looks at the fashion industry and one of the most celebrated figures within it. The 1995 documentary trails famous clothing designer Isaac Mizrahi and the process he undertakes to put together his fall 1994 collection. Shot mainly in black and white, the film is a fun glass of wine as the various collection of supermodels, celebrities and other industry cameos pop up for some gossipy fun. Yet Unzipped strips all that away and emerges as a testament to a creative mind and his struggle to stay true to himself as an artist in the midst of glamorous chaos.
The most famous name in all of horror literature is explored in this insightful documentary as the works and ideas of H.P. Lovecraft are put on full display. For the die-hard Lovecraftian, few other docs could so deftly surveyed the essence of the author and how his works were not only jolting pieces of game-changing horror fiction, but fascinating theories concerning humanity as a species in the 21st century in the way Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown does. Commentary from Guillermo del Toro, Neil Gaiman, John Carpenter and other iconic names, all of whom turn up to both praise Lovecraft and give their own takes the work of one of the most influential names in all of horror, is on-hand in what is a horror fiction fan’s dream of a documentary.
If there’s one thing Leslie Caron: The Reluctant Star — a great documentary about the glamorous 50s French movie star Leslie Caron — shows, it’s the fact that a person can be instantly celebrated and then eventually forgotten. The Reluctant Star traces the twice Oscar-nominated Caron’s meteoric rise to movie fame thanks to roles in An American in Paris and Gigi, which came with a number of high-profile romances (most notably with Warren Beatty), and her eventual, subtle dismissal by the crop French filmmakers in the 1970s. In her own words, Caron imparts the many lessons the different sides of her journey taught her while showing a still-unstoppable hunger for life.
More VOD than the streaming services we tend to focus on, yet no less worth seeking out is Jonathan Demme’s chronicle of one of the most revered American figures of all time, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains. The director of The Silence of the Lambs follows the 39th President of the United States on his book tour and the controversy which surrounded it as a result of his cries for peace. Never fully appreciated while in office, but celebrated for his humanitarian efforts in the years since, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains takes a look at the endlessly energetic Carter as he continues his efforts to bring peace to lands, both at home and abroad, echoing the ideals which were at the foundation of his Presidency and the heart of his legacy.
