![]() ![]() But after shrugging off the airbrushing tendencies of new films about composer Phillip Glass and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, the one that really left me scratching my head was Alex Gibney's Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. ![]() Perhaps I'm noticing this more because I've encountered a number of examples of it lately. The result is a kind of soft-edged (if often sharply crafted) hagiography, more akin to celebrity puff pieces than to probing, tough-minded journalism. Put simply, when dealing with an important cultural figure, some filmmakers seem more eager to convey rather than to question the legend: i.e., the subject's carefully cultivated public persona. While it wasand remainsa great indictment of the press' habit of feeding rather than impeding popular fantasies, Ford's cynical injunction also, it seems to me, pricks a recent trend in documentary films that profile artists. That famous line from John Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance shrewdly appraises our tendency to prefer the comforting simplicities of myth to the challenging complexities of reality. "When the legend becomes fact, print the legend."
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