NATALIE WOOD: WHAT REMAINS BEHIND Director and Producer on Shaping Natalie Wood’s Legacy for an HBO Documentary
“When I realized that Natalie chose the films she made, it made me look at her work in a different way.”
By Laurent Bouzereau
Coming out of my series “Five Came Back,” I was looking for a new project. I got a call from a friend, Manoah Bowman, who is an archivist, historian and writer of Hollywood. He mentioned a coffee table book he had co-written on Natalie Wood, with her daughter, Natasha Gregson Wagner and asked me if I could recommend a director for a potential documentary…I replied: “What about me?”
My documentary filmmaking career was launched by Steven Spielberg, so I immediately partnered up with Amblin Television. I have done many projects with his team on the television side, Darryl Frank and Justin Falvey, and we thought the best home for our film would be HBO. I had always wanted to do a project there, and luckily, Nancy Abraham and Lisa Heller, co-heads of HBO Documentary Films, responded to our pitch and off we went.
When I met Natasha, I found her so charming, strong, youthful, and relatable, that I immediately felt she needed to be the through-line. For that reason, her interview needed to be different than the rest, and I made the decision for her to be the only interview subject to talk directly to camera. It’s a way of connecting us, Natasha and myself, to the audience. It was so important to engage the audience, especially young viewers who may not know who Natalie is. I hope it has an immediate impact on the audience, that it feels very inclusive and that they realize they’re part of this journey, that there’s a lot in this story that might speak to them directly.
In conversations with HBO and Amblin, we agreed on a few points right at the beginning. Because Natasha was Natalie’s daughter, there was an acknowledgement that the film wouldn’t be entirely objective. But that gave the film a certain kind of intimacy that no one else could provide. It was also important to know that Natasha and others in the family were not opposed to addressing some of the most difficult parts of the story. We did an interview early on between Natasha and her stepfather, RJ Wagner. On the basis of that footage, we all agreed that yes, we could do something extremely honest and powerful.
I also wanted a very specific look for interviews; I did not want to have the film feel old Hollywood, but to highlight the brightness and light Natalie exhibited in her life. We embraced windows and modern environments as much as we could to demonstrate this. Those early discussions were crucial to establishing the language of the film.
I had access to a wealth of archival material to sort through, with the support of my editor Jason Summers. To create a feeling of intimacy, we used as many personal family photos and home movies as possible, as opposed to glamorous studio shots. We used movie clips that showed Natalie Wood as a person and demonstrated how her values were reflected in the films she chose to make.
When I realized Natalie chose the films she made, it made me look at her work in a different way. Rebel without a Cause is a great example of a film that her parents did not want her to make — why? Because it is about a young woman’s rebellion against her family. By making Rebel, she was making a statement to herself, her family and fan base. In later years, a film like Inside Daisy Clover shows the story of an actress fighting the studio system — which Natalie did in real life. Gypsy is all about the complicated relationship Natalie had with her own mother. This documentary really presents her as an auto-biographical actor, which is really quite remarkable for someone of her generation.
There were also the personal home movies that revealed the family person that Natalie was. That footage really showed how she lived to the fullest, almost as if she knew of her destiny. She was the boss in so many ways — at work and at home — but I think a better term is ’nurturer.’ She took care of everyone, because she had provided for her own parents and sisters from when she had become a child actor. She helped so many people that the ripples of her reach are still felt today.
Eventually came the time to show the cut to HBO. Lisa and Nancy enjoyed the film and felt that the structure really worked, but they also had some fascinating creative remarks and reactions that really showed how it could be improved. We sat there for several hours, way into the night, analyzing every single sequence. It was actually fun because I could see the film emerging in a new light. When it was all done, I had an entirely new sense of what defines for me the perfect creative partnership, and I couldn’t be prouder of the final result of this collective effort.
“Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind” debuted on May 5 and is now available on HBO and to stream on HBO Max.
