Making Montgomery Clift

This docu about Montgomery Clift will leave you saddened. He's the perfect example of a talented emotional man torn in half by what his natural self is and a corrupt society poisoned by religion that demands he be something else.

This is a must see to experience on how Hollywood can oppress and glorify at the same time.

Once I learned Montgomery Clift was buried in a Prospect Park Quaker cemetery, I became very interested in learning more about him. This documentary is important in dispelling the notion that Clift was driven to ruin because of his sexuality. If anything it seems to me he was ahead of his time being so open about his bisexuality, rather then being tormented by it - his mother knew he liked men as early as his young teens and she was very accepting. Also the famous car accident wasn't the beginning of the end for him - his favorite roles took place after the accident and he did more films after it then before it. What was the beginning of the end was his experience with John Huston wrongfully suing him over allegedly not memorizing his lines in the Freud movie (Huston lost but Monty's reputation never recovered and he couldn't find work in the last years of his life).

So glad I had the opportunity to see Making Montgomery Clift at the SVA Theatre in New York. Rather than being a biography, the film allows the viewer to consider Monty in a fresh light through the efforts of filmmakers, Robert Clift (a nephew) and Hillary Demmon (Robert 's wife). It dispells the tired myth of "tragic, closeted drug-addicted alcoholic" that was reported and repeated in previous biographies.

Not sure how wide a release this will get as seems to be playing only in specialized, small film festivals, currently. So refreshing to see this upbeat, loving perspective and learn about exaggerations and "untruths" told even in the best biographical attempts.

This is a remarkable work of historical reconstruction, using the remarkable Clift family archives. It makes you realize just how hollow so many (if not all) Hollywood biographies and especially Hollywood biopics are. Here we see interviews with filmmakers who wanted to make a biopic about the "real" Monty (shown to be just a fantasy). Makes you wonder just how "real" the Freddy Mercury biopic was (which also traded on the audience-pleasing trope of the "tragic homosexual"), yet the Academy showered it with Oscars.

I just saw this doc at the Palm Springs Film Festival last night. While it valiantly attempts to dispel supposed "myths" about Monty's life, it fails to recognize some obvious truths, as well. such as his decline into alcohol and drugs, which undoubtedly led to heart failure at 45 years old.

It was only mentioned during the Q&A's afterward that Clift's even had a twin sister and her entire side of the large family refused to participate. Much of the doc was composed of secret recording by he filmmaker's father, Monty's brother Brooks Clift.

While the doc's obvious mission was to focus on his talent and unconventional bucking of a studio contract to maintain his sexual freedom, I feel it was rather to have more control in the films he chose and the dialog contained within. They filmmakers heavily downplayed the impact of his automobile accident, which forever altered his incredible good looks and descent into addiction. I applaud them for attempting to show a different side of Clift than the one portrayed by both biographers Bosworth and LaGuardia, but in doing so, they also failed to address several elephants in the room.

The doc loses its way on occasion and becomes bogged down in its own minutia, but still offers an alternative to previous insights by a proud nephew..