Who’s Fibbing?
Donald Sutherland has said that Peter Bart’s forthcoming account of having witnessed the shooting of the legendary Don’t Look Now lovemaking scene, and observing that Sutherland and costar Julie Christie were actually doing it, is “mendacious.” Which is a roundabout way of saying Bart is full of shit.
But maybe he isn’t.
Bart’s tale is included in a new book he’s written titled “Infamous Players: A Tale of Movies, the Mob, (and Sex).” It streets on May 3rd.
“Not true…none of it…not the sex…not him witnessing it,” the 75-year-old Sutherland told N.Y. Daily News reporter Soraya Roberts in a story posted today.
Clearly, someone is either lying or greatly exaggerating or suffering from a faulty memory. Or is getting old. Sutherland was 36 or 37 when the Don’t Look Now scene in question was shot. Christie, currently 70, was 31 or 32 at the time, and Bart, now 78, was 40 or so.
Wells, do you know what mendacious means?
There’s nothing “roundabout” about mendacious. Seems as direct as possible.
I’m guessing Sutherland is telling the truth. If I had sex on camera with a 32 year old Julie Christie, I would tell EVERYONE.
I know what mendacious means, but it sounds roundabout. A direct response would be to use the words “lying” or “liar.”
Well, Sutherland is kind of a vocabulary hound. he once dressed down Entertainment Weekly’s Ben Svetkey for using the word “basically.”
I don’t think Sutherland’s being roundabout, I think Bart’s full of it in this case, and I think the whole topic is adolescent. And that’s my NICE word for it.
Mendacious = how awful for someone to repeat such a sordid tale. It doesn’t actually call Bart a liar.
Mendacious = lying or untruthful. Look it up.
Thoughts on Roeg and Roll:
Obviously,as I’ve known Peter Bart for 30 years and worked with him for almost 20, I can’t be impartial, but I can you tell you I’ve heard a lot of his stories over the decades and while I’ve heard differing opinions about his view of the past, I’ve never encountered a story that was wholly fabricated, ie “he wasn’t there.”
There are plenty of widely told stories about one of Nic Roeg’s other notorious films, “Performance:”
So, Nic did have a little prior hanky-panky on his resume BEFORE Donald and Julie went full Venetian on us. And some damn wild movie connubiality afterwards as well.
If you haven’t seen “The Man Who Fell To Earth,” “Bad Timing,” “Track 29,” “Walkabout,” “Insignificance” or even, if you’re really damn enterprising, “Full Body Massage,” you have some great and groovy films full of wonder and not just the “is it simulated or real” kind, being Roeg films, there’s plenty of), but wonder at Roeg’s lust for filmmaking and storytelling that takes viewers into uncharted lands, ie our own brains and hearts.
If one person checks out Roeg because of Peter Bart’s new book, he’s done the world of cinemagoing a great, ahem, “service.”
Gaydos, have you seen Roeg’s “Puffball”? Might be the most recent thing he did… Came out to zero fanfare and it’s sort of awful, but still crazy and audaciously weird. Also he beat Von Trier and Noe to the punch with internal close-ups of penetration.
Also: Walkabout = Jenny Agutter LOOOK AT HER. I know I’m going against my own “I never like vintage actresses, only the new young stuff” edict, but in the case of Walkabout, HOLY SHIT. Saw that a couple years ago and jaw was on the floor. And geeks have always talked up Agutter re: Werewolf and Logan’s Run, and I didn’t get it. Didn’t do much for me in those. But in WALKABOUT, this little 18-year-old slice of PERFECTION. Especially in her FETCHING blue hat.
Jenny Agutter in Walkabout was always what my Dad would talk about when he got all misty-eyed and nostalgic for the hotties of his youth. Kind of like my Shannon Elizabeth in American Pie, or Amy Smart in Road Trip.
Or my Kristen Stewart in “Speak.”
Yep, I not only LOVE “Puffball,” I have a DVD and I helped bring the film and Nic to Karlovy Vary Film Fest a couple of years.
My admiration and respect and well, hell, AWE at what Nic has created has no bounds. “Man Who Fell To Earth” looks like it was made ten years FROM NOW….
It was sad to read that Richard Schickel dismissed “Performance” at the time as “totally worthless.” It’s that kind of myopia and misreading of Nic’s work that put him in a kind of critical wilderness. I’d have to say that Nic and Carol Reed are probably the two most underrated directors in UK history and yes, Reed is underrated because he’s generally known for good for” Third Man” and then not so good as the guy who did “Trapeze” and “Oliver.” But though they’re remaking his brilliant “Fallen Idol,” (be afraid, be very afraid), I don’t see anyone talking about what might be his OTHER masterpiece, “Outcast of the Islands.”
So between the two of them, Nic and Carol have close to a dozen terrific films including a couple of masterpieces. And they were contemporaries!!!!!!!!
Anyway, Nic deserves a Knighthood for his work, but I can see why that WON’T happen. He also deserves a small budget to make a film again and that is hopefully a bit more likely and will occur I’m sure when a set of testicles magically appear somehwhere in the film business.
PS: Almodovar’s new film was a project Nic developeped for years and couldn’t get
Site took me out!
continuing on Nic:
Nic couldn’t get funding for KISS OF LIFE, which is now in the able hands of Pedro Almodovar. I pray I have Nic’s script somewhere for posterity. It was one of the most exciting projects I ever read. Even Hopper was afraid of it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Got to love HE for film discussion and the place to find new laptop batteries and prom dresses!
Mendacious:
adjective:
1.
telling lies, especially habitually; dishonest; lying; untruthful: a mendacious person.
2.
false or untrue: a mendacious report.
While I’m not going dismiss Bart’s claims, I’ve heard Roeg say on many occasions, including ( I think) on the Special Edition DVD release, a couple of years ago; that hardly anybody was present during the making of that scene, just the cameraman, sound guy and Roeg himself…now whether that’s true or not, I doubt Bart (if he was even there) would have been allowed to hang out on set while they filmed it…So wherever he got that piece of gossip it was reported to him, making him a very unreliable source…and has someone has already pointed out hasn’t someone said the same thing about every sex scene in every Roeg movie…
Jenny Agutter in Walkabout is one of the running jokes on the British show Coupling. One character mentions it and the others all nod appreciatively.
And don’t sell her short in Logan’s Run. TCM shows it uncut, 70s nudity and all. The scene where she has to change out of her wet clothes in the ice cave is most impressive.
Jenny Agutter costars in Monte Hellman’s “China 9, Liberty 37″ rather impressively.
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I love Donald Sutherlands work, I think he is a great actor.
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“But in WALKABOUT, this little 18-year-old slice of PERFECTION.”
Oh, Lexie, even when you try not to be creepy you can’t help yourself.
Agutter was 16 when she made WALKABOUT.
Agutter was born in 1952, Berke Breathed. So you’re saying that WALKABOUT was made in 1968-69? I don’t think so. Hope this comment reaches you between your trip to Home Depot and driving your kids to soccer practice, so you have a chance to respond.
Agutter was born in December of that year, and filming started in August of ’69, making her (I’ll leave Prager some time to break out his calculator…………) SIXTEEN.
Why this matters in the first place is entirely lost on me; I couldn’t care less. I just get sick and fucking tired of GP spouting off trying to “correct” people before even putting in any legwork of his own.
Time for your afternoon Starbucks triple vanilla espresso latte or something.
Considering I was NEGATIVE TWO when the movie came out, and Agutter’s in her mid 50s now, I don’t really give a shit. Pretty sure when I was a kid I had a crush on age-appropriate Drew Barrymore in Cat’s Eye, in case DTG wants more ammunition for his Christopher Meloni on Law and Order routine.
And 16 is the age of consent in Australia and isn’t there a nude scene? So it’s not like Lex was watching Jessica Alba in the first season of “Flipper” with a box of kleenex next to him.
Calling something an expresso latte is redundant. A latte is steamed milk and expresso. I worked at Starbucks for a time and never touched the stuff. Milk is poison. I drank expresso over ice or just had a cup of coffee.
They teach employees to spell espresso with an “x” at Sturbucks?
Cafe espresso or simply espresso (expresso is a colloquial Americanization) is a concentrated beverage brewed by forcing hot water under pressure through finely ground coffee.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Espresso
You WORKED there, and you never noticed how it’s spelled?
http://www.starbucksstore.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=313025
“Colloquial Americanization” is a nice way of saying “common misspelling.”
I prefer expresso. Espresso sounds gay to me.
Okay. To each his own.
The “did they” or “didn’t they” debate has been around since DONT LOOK NOW was initially released. The publicity surrounding the film hinted at actual sex. Maybe Bart believes it did happen. Bruce Dern was scolded by his co-star Maude Adams when he tried to suggest similar goings-on while publicizing the film TATTOO. Adams showed up everywhere to set the record straight.
“So it’s not like Lex was watching Jessica Alba in the first season of “Flipper” with a box of kleenex next to him.”
And somewhere in LA, a light bulb went on over Lex’s head.