Pharos of Chaos (1983)
A superb, moving and thrilling interview with American actor Sterling Hayden (1916-86), held in Besançon, France, on board a dilapidated barge, when he was 65 years old. An unparalleled portrait, in his own words and without any qualms, of a legendary Hollywood star, icon of film noir and the western, who was also a marine, an OSS agent, an anti-communist informer, a writer and a wandering sailor: the hero of his own life.
- Manfred Blank
- Wolf-Eckart Bühler
- Felix Hoffmann
- Hella Kothmann
Rating: 6.3/10 by 13 users
Alternative Title:
Pharos of Chaos: A Profile of Sterling Hayden - US
Lighthouse of Chaos - US
Faro del caos - ES
Country:
Germany
Language:
English
Français
Deutsch
Runtime: 01 hour 59 minutes
Budget: $0
Revenue: $0
Plot Keyword: cinema on cinema, movie business, besançon, france, celebrity interview
A fascinating opportunity to spend some intimate time learning about the life and career of Sterling Hayden as he lives - aged 67 (ish) - on his dilapidated Parisian barge. Unfortunately, the film allows the subject to randomly rabbit on - frequently about alcoholism, from which he clearly suffered. Without any constructive or even vaguely penetrative direction, this becomes little more than a video diary; sometimes engaging and lucid, other times completely in the realms of "Grey Gardens". It is frequently too much of a monologue - it's as if Manfred Blank was too unwilling and/or intimidated to subject Hayden to anything like the degree of interrogation necessary to elicit anything meaningful from this character who undoubtedly had something to say.
