Movie Star

The New "Seberg" Movie: How Much of it is True?

Top image--the tagline used to promote the documentary film Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg since 2013. Bottom image--the tagline for the new narrative film Seberg.

You are a fan of Jean Seberg, and you've just heard about or watched the new film Seberg. The film was previously titled Against All Enemies. You may be wondering how much of the film is true and how close the film's depiction is to who Jean Seberg really was. This page will break it down for you and point the way to factual accounts of Jean's multifaceted life, including our own documentary film Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg and books by Jean's biographer Garry McGee.

We acknowledge that the producers of Seberg made a fictional film. Seberg is not a documentary. Therefore, they have absolutely no obligation to tell the truth. However, if you're like us, when you see a film based on a true story you are curious about what is truth and what is fiction. Here's what the filmmakers said about how they prepared for their respective roles in the Seberg film during a live-streamed "press conference" interview at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2019.

Kristen Stewart, Actor: "It wasn't about doing it perfectly. It was definitely about being able to  sort of--do a sort of imaginative rendering of what it might be like to pull back the veneer of her life that was available to us in research. But really there was no way to know her inside of those, of that period.

Because this is a sort of like a boiled down version of this person [Jean Seberg], you like take an image, and something kind of more [on the] surface, and then start deconstructing it, and like watching it become a real thing that like breathes and is fallible, and is vulnerable. So yeah I think like the way, like I was saying earlier, just my way in with seeing her, just later in her life, like it was just like there was no way to get very close to her other than through her work."

The limited resources that were available just were like so completely different, so polarized."

Benedict Andrews, Director: "The aperture of this movie is very specific and doesn't pretend to tell the whole, whole story. We have glimpses of her life. And she described this period as, as a long nightmare, that when she looked back she couldn't tell the truth. So we're trying to find that truth in that. But it's interesting, so much of the biographical material, it's already a kind of fiction. The biographies have differing accounts of this period. And then also her husband Romain Gary he wrote a novel called White Dog about this period. The Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, who she had a relationship [with], also wrote a book, Diana: The Goddess Who Hunts Alone, also talking about it. So there's already this kind of fictional idea of her, but then Anna [Waterhouse] and Joe [Shrapnel] weave in all these facts in there... I love how this kind of, these truths are weaved [sic] into something that also has a kind of speculative history. But in the end, we're trying to do, to be truthful to that, that experience and invite the audience to get close to that experience."

Joe Shrapnel, Screenwriter: "I had a connection through Deborah [Deborah Kerr, Jean's co-star in Bonjour Tristesse] and her husband Peter Viertel, who is a mentor to me and a screenwriter. So, he'd remembered Jean in a certain way. That was our only sort of first-hand primary connection to her and the rest is intense research, reading... [interrupted by Waterhouse]"

Anna Gregory Waterhouse, Screenwriter: "I met some people when I was living in New York with us writing. And, I've met quite a lot of people who were involved in politics, and the F.B.I. at that time. And, obviously you can't, I mean there are files, they've been heavily redacted. You can't get that much information."

The complete interview is still available on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/qX9sK3tNbJ8

Once Seberg is in general release and we've had a chance to see it, we'll post specific details regarding where the film touches on truth and where it strays into fiction.

Jean's true story is currently available in our film Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg [coming soon] and Jean Seberg--Breathless by Garry McGee and Neutralized: The F.B.I. vs Jean Seberg by Garry McGee and Jean Larson.

Seberg is set for release in theaters only on December 13, 2019.

'You Must Remember This' Podcast Focuses on Actresses/Activists Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda

  

Rolling Stone's Justin Ravitz interviewed Karina Longworth about her Podcast You Must Remember This and the new season's focus on actresses and activists Jean Seberg and Jane Fonda.

Rolling Stone excerpt (June 26, 2017):

Two female icons of the screen. One, a second-generation Hollywood royal, and ubiquitous for over 50 years; the other, born in obscurity, still mysterious and lesser-known today, her biography mired by tragedy and untimely death. What unites them? That's the focus of "Jane & Jean" the new season of You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth's popular and addictive podcast about 20th century Hollywood – now over three years and 100-plus episodes old – which finds an unexpected sisterhood between Jane Fonda and Jean Seberg. As told by the honey-voiced Longworth – a charismatic, details-obsessed film critic and historian – YMRT has previously delved into the Blacklist, Hollywood during World War II, Charles Manson's Hollywood connections and Joan Crawford. Most recently, the "Dead Blondes" season explored the spiritual and cultural import of such doomed women as Marilyn Monroe, Jayne Mansfield, Veronica Lake and Grace Kelly.

As Longworth tells Rolling Stone, that's where Jean Seberg first came into the picture. Click the link to read the rest of the Rolling Stone's article.

To listen to the Jean & Jane Podcast click HERE!

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The new award-winning Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg was funded in part with grants from Humanities Iowa, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Iowa Arts Council. The Historical Society of Marshall County served as the fiscal sponsor for the documentary project. The documentary is expected to be released on DVD late 2017/early 2018, with broadcasts to follow on PBS stations.  The documentary is co-produced by Fourth Wall Films and McMarr, Ltd.

Garry McGee (McMarr LTD) is the author of “Jean Seberg: Breathless” and co-author of “Neutralized: The FBI vs Jean Seberg” and “The Films of Jean Seberg”. He received a Regional Emmy® nomination for writing the documentary The Last Wright.  Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films received a Regional Emmy® nomination for their documentaries River to River: Iowa’s Forgotten Highway 6, Letters Home to Hero Street (co-produced with WQPT) and Country School: One Room – One Nation.

Jean Seberg & Natalie Wood

Courtesy Paramount Pictures

Hollywood actress and Oscar-nominee Natalie Wood turned down the title role in Robert Rossen's 1964 psychodrama Lilith.  Wood deemed the lead character too similar to the role she played in Splendor in the Grass.  Actress Jean Seberg was cast and garnered more praise for her performance than any other role in her film career. 

Natalie never regretted not playing Lilith, perhaps because she was pleased with Jean's success in the role.

In a letter written to her parents in April 1966, Jean mentioned the box-office success of her current film Moment to Moment. "[It] has done pretty well--better than Judith with Sophia Loren, and better than Natalie Wood's picture [This Property is Condemned]--but I don't want to do another movie where I am without support from a well-known actor.  It's too much responsibility alone."  Three years later Seberg made Ondata di Calore, aka Dead of Summer, without the benefit of a strong leading man.

Author Gavin Lambert noted in his biography, Natalie Wood - A Life, that on November 16, 1981, Natalie "...watched Mike Wallace's profile of Jean Seberg, whom she liked and admired.  It might seem to throw light (or more darkness) on the last weeks of Natalie's life that she watched a program about a deeply troubled actress."

Natalie must have wondered what happened to the beautiful and talented Jean Seberg. 

Wood died thirteen days later at the age of 43.  With the reopening of the investigation into the circumstances surrounding her death, many are wondering again what happened to the beautiful and talented Natalie Wood.