Call Me Kate

Documentary looking at the life of 4 times oscar winner Katherine Hepburn. With an apparent shortage of actual Hepburn footage, it uses created narration using someone doing an impression of the star, mixed with original footage. The film does look to analyse Hepburn as a character and what drove her forward from child through to her nineties, rather than focus as much on the specifics of her film career. There is inevitably also quite a close look at her love life particularly Spencer Tracy.

It's an interesting if not very emotionally engaging experience and with little footage of Hepburn available, the various tricks being used to tell her tale aren't wholly successful.

Some critics here have been very harsh on this documentary. But I found it very informative and sweet. Sure, for those already very familiar with Katharine Hepburn's life and work, there may not be a lot that's new. But I had not known a lot about her and so I learned a lot. It is an affectionate piece, obviously, with input from her family and from the family of her lover Spencer Tracy, but what's wrong with that? Hepburn was unlucky in that Tracy was married and so she did not get to have a traditional relationship, except for in Tracy's final years when she lived with him. But mostly in her life Hepburn was very lucky indeed. She happened to meet people in Hollywood who liked and encouraged her, who wrote for her and directed her in some of the top movies of her day. She had a wonderful and wealthy family including a wise, steadfast and feminist mother, she had good people around her as her assistants and friends. Even her first husband sounds like he was a very nice man, even though she admits she broke his heart. But aside from being lucky, Hepburn also was courageous and intelligent in standing up for herself so that she was paid well, could dress the way she wanted and did not have to compromise and play the sex object like many other actresses. Her mother taught her to get back up when she was down. Hepburn has a reputation for being somewhat cold emotionally but this documentary gives a more rounded insight into her life and character. She paved the way for female actors and characters to be actual characters as opposed to love interests, and she lived her life as she wanted it to be.

I was looking forward to this about an actress and person I've long admired, but I found this to be somewhat disappointing. There's little here that is new other than some audio tapes that are sometimes hard to understand, and not terribly revelatory, and some nice home movie clips of when she was young. She was quite the force to reckon with, highly intelligent, charismatic and uniquely beautiful. The film clips are wonderful, though almost all too short with many overlooked entirely. Some of her comments are insightful and she was a woman way ahead of her time and an actress unlike any other. Just ask whoever is trying to impersonate her here, which is one of the major problems with this documentary. The narration by a person attempting, poorly, to sound like her and to present this in sort of a first person narrative just doesn't work very well at all nor does a person pretending to be her from behind, in the shadows, etc. I nearly turned this off due to these contrived annoyances, but I still find the subject matter interesting despite reading about her for decades. I was hoping to learn something new, but perhaps she has been covered so much for so long that there simply is nothing new. Most of the balance of the narrative is presented by those who were not close, if at all, to her simply due to time marching on. Still, she was a fascinating and strong woman who lived a life most of us can only dream of. One of the more prominent comments from her, the real her, made here is about how lucky and appreciative she was to have the parents she did. We too can thank them. Odd near the end, this is not a very strong piece of filmmaking which I get the impression mostly exists due to the existence of those old scratchy audio tapes.

I think this film is probably most interesting to those who don't feel they already know everything there is to know. I see review after review complain the narration was bad but I thought it was really good as well as a nod to the producers' for making such an effort. I'm not particularly a fan but Kate was a good friend to my best friend - a controversial man in the entertainment industry before his passing. So I have great regard for her. As an actress, I thought she was very tom boyish and seeing her always-present side-kick it doesn't take a genius to know only someone in love with you would follow you every where and be at your beck and call. That's not to say it was reciprocal. But having a famous friend in the industry, I've seen more than my share of fans who begged to be used, just like Luddy. I've witnessed first-hand my friend being called gay when he was far from it. My point is, much of this film is speculation and gossip and must be taken with a grain of salt. There were other tougher women in the industry who came before Kate. I can't imagine how tempting it is to take advantage of people who just beg for it and take advantage of every foot hold you can find as a woman back then. But clearly she was from an extremely dysfunctional abusive family so I find it interesting she describes it as an idealic childhood. In her day she was very unique and head strong, not unlike Lucille Ball who was turned down so many times she started her own production company and you know how that went.

This documentary covers an iconic actress whose life is well known.

But the film uses very good primary sources, mainly actual interviews, and the editing is first rate.

I don't think I learned anything dramatically new, but the way the subject is arranged brought some new insights into the information.

If nothing else, it's interesting to have a documentarian openly discussing gender and orientation. (As Hepburn herself would have been open to doing--as she actually did on tape in years past.)

Katharine Hepburn was ahead of her time. She may well still be ahead of our time. Because the woman lived a truly authentic life without the usual self-limiting worries most of us have.