It is impressive to note in the Agnes Varda sold out room the amount of young audience for The Last Movie Stars.
It is an Hbo series among the gems of Cannes Classics, it was certainly much awaited, but it is dedicated to an actor, or rather to a couple who would be thought to be distant from the new generations.
Yet for the giant Paul Newman and his love and family affair with actress Joanne Woodward, the applause was wasted.
Accompanying two episodes with warmth and affection was director and producer Ethan Hawke, 51, 4 Oscar nominations and a maniacal passion for Newman.
The six-chapter series is precious: not only for the images of Newman's filmography that runs almost without interruptions (a nice review from the prisoner drama Nick cold hand with the legendary scene of the 50 hard-boiled eggs to swallow at La Stangata, The Verdict and everything the rest) but for first-hand stories, archive interviews with the protagonists such as Paul's first wife Jacqueline E. Witte, some directors such as Martin Scorsese (here also co-producer), Martin Ritt, Sidney Lumet, also recovered in etchings in anachronistic cassette tapes.
At the center the interviews with Paul Newman granted over many years and to his family, such as some of the six children, three with Jacqueline and three with Joanne.
From the stories of Stephanie and Melissa, two of the six, the story of Paul before his celebrity comes out, from enlisted in the Navy in the Second World War in the Pacific area to his return to Cleveland in his father's company, his desire to do theater and cinema strongly opposed by his mother with whom he will not speak for many years.
And then obviously the successes, the passion for racing cars, the always happy family films, the political activism.
"Paul and Joanne loved each other very much - said Hawke - and as a family they took care of each other, this film makes us appreciate this union and remember them as is right".
Next to him Clea Newman Soderlund,
the youngest daughter of the couple who strongly wanted this documentary on the father, Oscar in 1987 and on the career in 1986 and on the mother Joanne, born in 1930, who took the Oscar in '58 and from the death of her husband in 2008 lives a retired life .
(HANDLE).