Becoming Cary Grant (Documentary; 2016)
It is tough being on top of the pecking order. Your every move and omittance are hawkishly scrutinised and publicised. People in the lower end of the food chain, without an iota of a clue of what it is to set the trend for tomorrow's society, sit in their armchair to pass judgements on the appropriateness of their leaders' moves.
For the leader who had spent a lifetime trying to get to the top, he would find it increasingly difficult to perch on the top savouring the fruits of his endeavour. Then he would ask himself the meaning of it all. He would ponder on what he is actually seeking for and when does it all end? Roosting a lonely high up on a pedestal where most of his contemporaries are out-of-league, he explores realms less travelled for answers.
In the 60s, LSDs were in vogue to search the answers to these intriguing questions in the hidden crypts of our gyri and sulci. Correctly or otherwise, this medically sanctioned psychoanalytical psychotherapy dug deep into the repressed memories of a person's past to find answers to the present listlessness and behavioural maladaptations.
This documentary is a product of the findings of actor Cary Grant's weekly LSD therapy with his doctor. Through this and his collection of home-made videos and photographs, we get a composite picture of the actor's early life in Bristol as a boy in a working-class society, of a mother who was institutionalised after his father's recommendation that his mother was 'not right in the head', of a death sibling from a gangrene thumb after his mother accidentally slammed the door against it and his indulgence in a travelling acrobatic troupe.
Living with his paternal grandmother after his father remarried, he started working and landed in America when his troupe performed there in the 1930s. From then on, the lure of the big lights of Broadway and Hollywood drew him to the celluloid screen. Archibald Alec Leach became Cary Grant.
All through the documentary, the director is trying to portray Grant as one who is trying to find his real self. Archibald, not knowing who he really is, seeks to build a persona for himself through a fictitious name with no past in Cary Grant. He is a private man who loves the company of the four walls. Even though it seems far-fetched, the documentary seems to suggest that the various directors that he worked with helped him to discover his true self. Perhaps, Cary Grant was just a good actor who could fit snuggly into any shoe, a suave hero, a cunning conman, a devious agent or a comic.
It is tough being on top of the pecking order. Your every move and omittance are hawkishly scrutinised and publicised. People in the lower end of the food chain, without an iota of a clue of what it is to set the trend for tomorrow's society, sit in their armchair to pass judgements on the appropriateness of their leaders' moves.For the leader who had spent a lifetime trying to get to the top, he would find it increasingly difficult to perch on the top savouring the fruits of his endeavour. Then he would ask himself the meaning of it all. He would ponder on what he is actually seeking for and when does it all end? Roosting a lonely high up on a pedestal where most of his contemporaries are out-of-league, he explores realms less travelled for answers.
In the 60s, LSDs were in vogue to search the answers to these intriguing questions in the hidden crypts of our gyri and sulci. Correctly or otherwise, this medically sanctioned psychoanalytical psychotherapy dug deep into the repressed memories of a person's past to find answers to the present listlessness and behavioural maladaptations.
This documentary is a product of the findings of actor Cary Grant's weekly LSD therapy with his doctor. Through this and his collection of home-made videos and photographs, we get a composite picture of the actor's early life in Bristol as a boy in a working-class society, of a mother who was institutionalised after his father's recommendation that his mother was 'not right in the head', of a death sibling from a gangrene thumb after his mother accidentally slammed the door against it and his indulgence in a travelling acrobatic troupe.
Living with his paternal grandmother after his father remarried, he started working and landed in America when his troupe performed there in the 1930s. From then on, the lure of the big lights of Broadway and Hollywood drew him to the celluloid screen. Archibald Alec Leach became Cary Grant.
All through the documentary, the director is trying to portray Grant as one who is trying to find his real self. Archibald, not knowing who he really is, seeks to build a persona for himself through a fictitious name with no past in Cary Grant. He is a private man who loves the company of the four walls. Even though it seems far-fetched, the documentary seems to suggest that the various directors that he worked with helped him to discover his true self. Perhaps, Cary Grant was just a good actor who could fit snuggly into any shoe, a suave hero, a cunning conman, a devious agent or a comic.
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