Why ruin a good story by telling it as it actually happened? Adam Dawtrey on the real business of Hollywood – manufacturing legends – and why it struggles to produce them today

A white-haired Jimmy Stewart has just finished telling how it was really John Wayne, not himself, who shot the gunslinger Lee Marvin all those years ago. The newspaper reporter tears up his notes. “You’re not going to use the story, Mr Scott?” asks Stewart. “This is the West, sir,” replies the hack. “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
So ends John Ford’s seminal oater The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, with a line that sums up everything you need to know about Hollywood.

Manufacturing legends is Hollywood’s business. Rewriting the truth is a task it performs more effectively than anyone since a playwright from Stratford-upon-Avon traduced a perfectly good Scottish king and his wife, just because he thought his story would play better in the cheap seats.

Hollywood sells us history as it should have been, not as it was. Prince Albert never threw himself in the way of an assassin’s bullet to protect his bride, as we witnessed in The Young Victoria. In fact, the gun misfired, or wasn’t even loaded. Filmmakers claim dramatic licence for taking such liberties, but they never reveal which form you fill out to get one.

But above all, Hollywood is devoted to mythologising itself. Just as every model is a supermodel and condoms come in no size smaller than large, so every director is an auteur, every executive a mogul. There are no actors, only stars, and if we believe the branding on DVDs, an implausibly high proportion of those qualify as legends. Stick around for a while, or die young, and your place in the pantheon is assured.

Yet in this, as in many other respects, Hollywood has become a pale shadow of its former self. When everyone’s a legend, the term is devalued. The studios are no longer the fiefdoms of the maverick moguls who writ their names large above the portals, but are run by accountants for conglomerates. Filmmakers borrow comic book myths rather than create new ones. And today’s stars – Cruise, Hanks, Smith, Crowe, Pitt, Clooney – may be admirable fellows, but they simply don’t have that Mount Rushmore quality of Bogart, Wayne or Hepburn. At least, not yet.

Is there anyone working who deserves to be called a legend? The American Film Institute’s list of Hollywood’s 50 greatest screen legends includes only stars whose careers began in or before 1950, or after 1950 “but whose death has marked a completed body of work”, as if to acknowledge that such status must be earned over decades and is only cemented after death.

It’s hard for any mortal who walks among us and swaps badinage with Jay Leno to achieve the aura of a demigod. Familiarity breeds contempt. These days we know too much, are too cynical. Legends breed in the blank places on maps, where ignorance leads cartographers to inscribe, “Here be dragons.” The Hollywood stars of old were such mythical beasts, created by the public imagination out of insufficient evidence. The studio system fed gossip to the rags, but it was mostly untrue and preserved the mystery.

Clint Eastwood, who received an honorary Palme d’Or in Paris three months before this year’s Cannes Film Festival (filming commitments prevent him from attending the festival proper), may be one of the last survivors to carry the mantle of legend comfortably. Like John Wayne, he created a screen persona and played riffs upon it for his entire career, never giving more than a tantalising glimpse beyond the mask. Eastwood has only magnified his mystery by revealing himself as a filmmaker of a subtlety and sensitivity that’s at odds with his Dirty Harry image. For all we know about him, Eastwood is ultimately still The Man with No Name.

Robert De Niro has something of the same aura, maybe Al Pacino too. The late Paul Newman undoubtedly had it – a screen icon with a vast hinterland beyond Hollywood. It’s debatable whether the same is true of Robert Redford. Although he occasionally scaled the heights as an actor and a director, and still presides over America’s most important film festival, his lustre has gradually faded. It’s as though the Sundance Kid embodied the golden glow of youth, and his radiance hasn’t survived the ageing process.

Of the younger generation, Will Smith has a messianic streak, but proclaiming “I Am Legend” doesn’t make it true. Brad Pitt and George Clooney, by contrast, seem too determined to remain part of the human race, despite looks and talent. It’s to their credit, but doesn’t make for myth.

But wait. Who’s that unapproachable goddess on Brad’s arm? Angelina Jolie, with her enigmatic, ever-so-slightly disdainful half-smile, radiates the aura of a biblical queen. Despite the media attention, she remains unfathomable and utterly terrifying. Her glacial reserve on the red carpet contrasts with the neediness displayed by virtually every other female celebrity. It also conflicts intriguingly with the rawness of her performances in movies such as Changeling and A Mighty Heart. A legend must give and withhold simultaneously. Jolie achieves that magnificently.

Johnny Depp is another who may have the chops for the pantheon. His creative choices are so brilliantly, eccentrically bold. What other star of his stature takes such inspired risks? Is there another leading man who so rarely plays a straight romantic or heroic role? His last “conventional” performance was probably Chocolat, almost a decade ago (and how boring was that?). By living in France and working almost exclusively in Europe, he has cultivated an elusive quality that feeds his mystique.

Legends, whether stars or stories, have to embody just enough truth to be plausible, not so much that they become prosaic. In these days of information overload, that’s a hard trick to pull off. Hollywood ain’t what it used to be, but at its best it still shows us a mythic world as we would like it to be, and convinces us that it might just be true.

- Adam Dawtrey is FQR’s film critic

Would you like to comment on this article?

You must be logged in to post a comment.