CELEBRITY: DOMINICK DUNNE
CELEBRITY: DOMINICK DUNNE |
 |
A documentary about the fall and rise of Vanity Fair's celebrity journalist Dominick Dunne. | score 3 |
moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable) |
| FIND A MOVIEREVIEW |
| Cast Dominick Dunne Director Kirsty de Garis Timothy Jolley Screenwriter Documentary Country Australia Rating / Running Time M / 85 minutes Australian Release October 2008 Official Site (c) moviereview
2006-2008
ABN 72 775 390 361 |
Unlikely
yet fascinating subject matter for an Australian documentary, Dominick
Dunne was a minor war hero who became a major Hollywood player and the
defining ‘voice’ of Vanity Fair. In the early 1960’s,
he and his heiress wife held the best parties in Los Angeles and knew
all the right people. People like Frank Sinatra, Gore Vidal
and Truman Capote. People like Humphrey Bogart who invited the
fledgling TV producer for dinner and ignited a passion for celebrity
that would never fade. It was love at first sight, one that would exact
a hefty toll on his life. Before he hit rock bottom, Dunne had lost two infant children, a brother to suicide and a wife to ego: “She was the real thing, I was the fake,” he said. Then his actor-daughter was strangled in a grisly murder, a tragedy that pulled him from free-fall and gave the writer a vocation - crusading for justice. With three novels and a Vanity Fair cover under his belt, Hollywood was once more his playground: O.J.Simpson, Phil Spector and Princess Diana his biggest stories. Celebrity is a compelling yarn that toys with a man caught between withering disdain and singular adoration for an industry that sought to reward and destroy him in equal measure. Now a celebrity journalist in his own right, starstruck Dunne is as opinionated and derisive of his subjects as he is of himself – a chink neatly exploited in Garais’ warm and surprisingly funny documentary. She and co-director Timothy Jolley are given unparalleled access to Dunne who is more than happy to play to the camera. Intimate nuggets reveal themselves when he lets his guard down. Workmanlike production aside, Celebrity is the affirming paradox of a 80 year old man who, according to his son, "is still a human being in development". // COLIN FRASER |