Documentary filmmaker Bruce David Klein had finished shooting for the day he was told that his subject, Liza Minnelli, wanted to see him privately. He found her sitting on the edge of his bed.
“She caught my hand. She started caressing him and looked at me with these bright and dark eyes and said:” Bruce, I don’t put anything wrong in the film. Don’t make me look like a false “”, he said.
After years to discuss with his subjects that they had to be true on the film, Minnelli’s request was refreshing. And accepted. The result is the documentary without stuffing “Liza: A really terrible story absolutely true.”
The film, which landed on PBS on Tuesday as part of its American Masters series, offers a new overview of an Egot winner who overcome the dependence, insecurity and the shadow of his mother – Judy Garland – to become a beloved American icon.
“We could probably have made three dozens of different films on the life of Liza,” explains Klein, who has already made documentaries on Meatloaf And Carl Icahn. “It is a great epic subject that she is.”
Not a conventional biopic
Klein uses old performance clips and new interviews with friends and admirers like Ben Vereen, Mia Farrow, Chita Rivera, George Hamilton, Joel Gray, John Kander, Darren Criss And Michael Feinstein – more revealing the rest with Minnelli herself.
The filmmaker did not want to make a conventional biopic: “It seems pretentious, but I have learned over the years to do that the most intelligent thing to do was to let the equipment speak to me instead of applying a preconceived concept of what the film would be.”
A bulb continued when he and Minnelli, 78, first sat down and he asked him questions about Fred EBB, half a lyricist of the legendary Broadway composition duo with Kander who wrote “Cabaret” and “Chicago.”
“Oh, Freddy,” she said. “He invented me.
From there, Klein realized that Minnelli relied on five key mentors after the death of his mother in 1969, people who helped shape the interpreter of the time – EBB, Kay Thompson, Charles Aznavour, Bob Fosse and Designer Halston.
“I think the biggest gift that these mentors gave him was confidence – self -confidence,” said Klein. Most superstars like to boast that they have done on its own. Not Minnelli: “In the case of Liza, she was in fact in favor of giving credit and being humble in this way.”
Minnelli performs on Land Awards 2011 TV in 2011 in New York. (AP photo / Charles Sykes, file)
The five mentors
The documentary argues that Zenavour – called the French Frank Sinatra – helped her put a song closer to the heart, and that Fosse gave him dancing both precision and discipline.
Thompson, actor, singer and author, framed it like an eccentric godmother and Halston made her glamorous. EBB was like a big brother who provided him with many important words, especially for his 1972 concert film “Liza with a Z.”
“People are asking me a lot of the most important time and what was the highest in Liza’s career. And they expect me to say “cabaret”, but absolutely, positively, it’s “Liza with a Z”, “explains Klein.
“It was the moment when you saw her five key mentors and her friends and everything comes together to raise Liza in the stratosphere.”
Vereen, in a separate interview, agrees with the premise that the film makes on his mentors, but adds that they were also fighting for his attention.
“I think they all hung on to her because of her heritage and, of course, her talent,” he said. “I wouldn’t say” used “but it was a chance for them to do their thing – whatever they do – and she got the benefit. We all done. “
Minnelli repeated to Carnegie Hall on May 28, 1987 in New York. (AP photo / g. Paul Burnett, file)
A real minnelli emerges
Klein was not afraid to go to uncomfortable places, such as the root of minnelli outbuildings – “I didn’t want someone to know that I was far from perfect,” she said to the filmmaker – and her novels, which were often disastrous.
A portrait emerges from a woman who is both strong and a pleasure. “She has this steel power confidence, and she has this vulnerability of insecurity, and she has both in the shovel, and they compete in her,” explains Klein.
Minnelli was what today is called a “nepo baby” – born on the third basis of fame – but she may have had a hard time finding her own level of superstar. She was constantly compared to Garland – the star of the Immortal “Wizard of Oz” – and brutally deposited her unconventional beauty. His father, Vincente Minnelli, was an Oscar -winning director.
“This idea of ​​a sword of double -edged privilege with her was one of the surprising things I learned,” explains Klein. “For her, from the third base to the house was in fact more difficult than for many of us when the bases arrived because of the expectations.”
