I have lost track of which month of the pandemic it was when Zoom became the bane of my existence. Zoom meetings, Zoom classes, Zoom happy hours, Zoom game nights, Zoom graduations. “I think you are silenced.” “Introduce yourself in chat.”
Similarly, I grew weary of the Zoom-produced movies, shows, and theatrical productions that became popular in the early months of the pandemic. What began as a necessity to keep artists working and creating and audiences engaged and entertained has become obsolete and artificial (with a few notable exceptions who found new approaches). So now, two and a half years into the pandemic, watching a group of famous actors appear in their little Zoom rectangles in the opening minutes of “The Last Movie Stars,” he was skeptical. Would this narrative device become an awkward distraction from the richness of the material?
Directed by Ethan Hawke, HBO Max’s six-part docuseries is a gargantuan undertaking exploring the legendary careers and marriage of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward. What could have been pure hagiography turns into something much more revealing. Without losing a sense of deep reverence for the titans of acting, Hawke has us consider the limitations of stardom and how neat, clean storytelling smooths out the complications of careers, marriages, families, and lives.
I was completely mesmerized by all of it, including, to my utter surprise, the use of Zoom in the docuseries, which gives it a raw, intimate feel. Part of this is for obvious logistical reasons. As Hawke explains, just before the pandemic, one of Newman and Woodward’s daughters gave Hawke a trove of old interview transcripts, originally intended for Newman’s abandoned memoirs. In the 1980s, the couple’s longtime friend, screenwriter Stewart Stern, interviewed Newman, Woodward, and many of their friends and collaborators. Later, Newman impulsively burned the tapes. But at some point, Stern had transcribed them.
To bring the transcripts to life, Hawke convened a star-studded group of “players,” as they’re called in the docuseries’ old-Hollywood-style end credits. George Clooney voices Newman and Laura Linney voices Woodward. Oscar Isaac provides the voice of “The Verdict” director Sydney Pollack. Sam Rockwell, who tells Hawke that he’s happy to go to work while he’s stuck at home, plays “Cool Hand Luke” director Stuart Rosenberg. Zoe Kazan is Newman’s first wife, Jackie. Martin Scorsese and Sally Field (and her Christmas tree) Zoom in for commentary, among many other celebrity guests. There are also Zoom interviews with the children and grandchildren of Newman and Woodward.
Stylistically, the Zoom shots and banter might have seemed out of place, plain and simple next to the more technically advanced options of the docuseries. There are meticulously edited segments that combine themes and narratives from the lives of Newman and Woodward with excerpts from their films that reflect what the interviewee is discussing. There is a plethora of stock footage: awards speeches, talk show interviews, magazine and newspaper clippings.
There is so much material to assimilate. I’ve frequently stopped docuseries to write some of his lesser-seen movies, like 1961’s “Paris Blues,” which features an absolutely incredible cast: Newman, Woodward, Sidney Poitier, and Diahann Carroll. Many of those unknown films star Woodward. One of the most devastating themes of the series is how deeply she was underestimated, despite being a bigger star than Newman at the beginning of her marriage. Like many women of her generation, she was expected to be a wife and a mother, and to put her career on the back burner while her husband’s stardom soared.
In one of the interview transcripts, he speaks with unusual candor about “if I had to do it all over again, I might not have had children.” He still sounds outspoken in 2022, when motherhood still feels too much like a predetermined expectation. The next episode brings up Newman’s quote about the longevity of her marriage: “Why should I go out for burgers when I have steak at home?” – which has become a pop culture tradition. But here we see Woodward’s response: “I’m a vegetarian.” In stills from another interview, he reveals the quote “it could have ended our relationship.”
“I mean, what a chauvinistic statement. I’m not a piece of meat, for God’s sake,” she says. “Every time that quote comes up, I want to kill.”
Surprisingly, instead of being a distraction from all this incredible dig, Zoom’s interstitials end up giving structure to sprawling docuseries. Throughout “The Last Movie Stars,” we see Hawke conversing with the actors. Before they start reading their respective transcripts, he gives them a bit of background on the person and events they’re portraying. It serves as an exhibition for us, the spectators.
Zoom also gives us a look at the process. There are several points where Hawke thinks out loud, trying to figure out what the docuseries is about. Answer the questions of the various actors. At the beginning of the last episode, he talks to his wife and producer Ryan and admits that he’s not sure what he’s trying to say in a segment about Newman’s commodification of celebrity. In a conversation with his daughter Maya, they discuss how in relationships, the relationship itself becomes a third person, and maybe that’s what the series is about. All of that, especially given the number of famous faces, could have been vulgar and self-indulgent. Instead, the inclusion of these Zoom conversations becomes a benefit, not a limitation.
In fact, it is difficult to imagine the finished product without Zoom. For example, when each of the Newman children recalls the complications and stresses of her family dynamics, there is a rawness and honesty that a series of more produced talking head interviews might not have achieved.
“The Last Movie Stars” is very much about looking inside pop culture narratives and celebrity mythmaking. The isolation of the pandemic has also forced many of us to look inward, so it’s fitting that this series is unmistakably a pandemic-era work. But Zoom’s staging and curation, especially when he involves many famous people, hasn’t always been the right vehicle for introspection. Particularly during those early months of the pandemic, Zoom was an awkward way to compare ourselves to others, looking at what other people had in the background.
And for all its informality, once Zoom became such a common structure in many of our lives, it began to feel like a more formal obligation. But despite all these annoyances, it’s good to discover that it can still be a new way of telling stories.