The autobiography of Robert Evans
The above quote opens one of the most brilliant & beautifully crafted documentaries ever made. I first saw "The Kid Stays in the Picture" several years ago and instantly fell in love with it. "The Kid" is a must-see for anyone even remotely interested in the film business. The piece is also a must-see for anyone pursuing his dreams. For if Evans' story is about anything, it is about how important it is for each individual to achieve his dreams and how equally vital it is for that same person, once he has fallen down, to pick himself up off the floor so that he can continue pursuing that dream. Need inspiration? Then you have to watch "The Kid".
Robert Evans was head of production in Paramount Pictures.
In the late sixties and early seventies he became the quintessential "New Hollywood" Executive: slickly packaged productions like Rosemary's Baby (1968), Love Story (1970) and of course the legendary Godfather (1972) revived Paramount. The latter film and Chinatown (1974) are the artistic highlights of Evans' Paramount career, though the amount of credit he deserves for them has been debated for decades. Eased out of Paramount, he saw The Cotton Club (1984) turn from a musical "Godfather" into a fiasco of front-page proportions. Evans righted his career with a new Paramount deal in the nineties.
"The Kid" during the period when he took Hollywood by storm, overseeing production of some of the most controversial
and successful films of all time
The Kid Stays in the Picture, is a documentary - autobiography of Robert Evans. To the wistful strains of `What'll I Do?' playing in the background, the camera glides lovingly over the furnishings, pictures and memorabilia that adorn Evans' Bel Air mansion and estate. The comparison is an apt one, for, like Gatsby, Evans was a wunderkind, a handsome young go-getter who knew early on the kind of life he wanted to lead and who willed himself to attain it. With a combination of good looks, charm, ambition and just a bit of plain old-fashioned good luck, he managed to go from being a mediocre movie actor to becoming the head of Paramount Studios in the course of a mere decade. And what a decade it was! Evans had a major hand in not only lifting Paramount from ninth to first place among Hollywood's major studios, but in bringing such films as `Rosemary's Baby,' `True Grit,' `Love Story,' `Chinatown' and, of course, `The Godfather' to movie screens everywhere.
Evans and Francis Ford Coppola "The Kid Stays in the Picture" is a dream-come-true for hardcore cinephiles, providing a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into one of the true Golden Ages of Hollywood filmmaking. Evans' story is, in fact, the story of that time, for truly he hobnobbed with virtually every one of the key players responsible for that era. Evans' tale follows a fairly conventional arc for men of his type: the ambitious kid with dreams of larger-than-life glory achieves meteoric success in the entertainment business only to have his ambitions dashed on the shores of rampant egotism, overconfidence and drug addiction. In fact, Evans' life would make perfect fodder for a film of its own, as this documentary and the positive response to it demonstrates. Evans himself narrates the film, and although he tends to be a bit easier on himself than an outsider might have been, he is still willing to chastise himself when he feels it's called for and to render some rather startlingly unflattering assessments of certain major players on the Hollywood scene. He is, also, however, utterly devoted to those he feels have stuck by him through good times and bad, and he is not averse to lavishing praise on others when it is due. One objection to Evans' narration is that he doesn't always speak with the utmost clarity, sometimes making what he says come out garbled and incomprehensible.
Evans behind the scenes
As a piece of filmmaking, `The Kid Stays in the Picture' offers a kaleidoscopic array of stills, film clips and reenactments that reflect the temper and mood of the time. Directors Brett Morgan and Nanette Burstein obviously pored through a wealth of material on the subject, culling from it a comprehensive, streamlined and fast-moving narrative that grips the audience with its humor, its sadness and its tribute to the indomitableness of the human spirit.
"The Kid Stays In The Picture" is also known for the extensive use of the 2.5D effect technique beautifully created by Yorgo Alexopoulos.
Up Close with Robert Evans. Interview with Don Dahler.
The apotheosis of quotations
"What I've Learned: Robert Evans" (Jan 2003)
Cojones! Either you're born with 'em or without 'em. Mine have done me as much harm as good. They've given me an interesting life. But it's much easier to read about it than to live it.
Someone once told me that the three most dangerous things in life are your own mouth, someone else's mouth, and a car. Adding a cell phone to the mix can only lead to disaster.
If you're a good-looking guy who likes dames and lives a cavalier life, your peers will not wish you success.
Fuck 'em. Fuck 'em all.
Background makes foreground. This goes for movies, it goes for dressing, it goes for living. Here's an example: If I go to a party and eight different people come over to me and say, "Gee, that's a great-looking tie," as soon as I get home, I take the tie off and put it in the shredder. Screw the tie! I'm not there to make the tie look good. The tie is there to make me look good. That's what I mean by background makes foreground.
The only way you can make a deal is if you're ready to blow it.
Rejection breeds obsession.
I was forced to use the name Evans. My father had a great disdain for his father. His father was a degenerate gambler. Used to go out for lunch and come back a month and a half later with no money. My father had to quit school and work to support his family. My father said to my brother and I, "Both you boys are going to be very successful. I don't want you to carry on my father's name. If you have success, I want my mother to get the credit." Her name was Evan.
I guess I'm an old-fashioned guy, but I like to look into somebody's eyes.
Never say yes when you mean no.
Instant gratification takes too long.
The only time I sensed peace of mind was when I had a stroke five years ago. Honest to God. I was here at home with Wes Craven. I'd never met him before, and I wanted to buy his new novel. I was making a toast, and the champagne flute dropped out of my hand and I fell to the floor. It was like I was dead. I scared the shit out of the King of Scream. I'm lying there, and the paramedic comes to see if I'm dead, and I look up and manage to say the only thing that could be said at that moment. I said to Wes: "I told you it's never dull around here." I was in total peace. Not in pain. I was dying, and I saw the flash of the ambulance, and I knew I was taking a trip. I woke up fifteen hours later, looking at the white ceiling, and I thought I'd made heaven. But I wasn't dead. And I wasn't Robert Evans, either. I was Quasimodo. I was totally paralyzed.
Sumner Redstone came all the time to visit me. He held my hand and said, "You're gonna make it! I was burnt to death and now I can walk. And you're gonna make it, too!" The doctors told him not to keep coming back because I wasn't going to make it, but he kept flying out. You know what that is? That's not friendship. That's not even loyalty. That's character. That man has character like no man I've ever known.
I felt like I died when I had the stroke. Right now I feel like I'm only five years old. I go with a beautiful young lady now and I tell her she's too old for me.
Royalty fades but infamy stays.
I've been shot down, bloodied, trampled, accused, disgraced, threatened, betrayed, scandalized, maligned.... Not that I'm complaining.
If you go by the rules, you end up being an accountant.
Darryl Zanuck told me years ago that if he could tell a story in two hours and get people to laugh and cry, he had himself a hit. That's what filmmaking is to me.
I don't kiss and tell. I learned early in life that continued silence is the greatest insurance policy to continued breathing.
The Cotton Club? I'll say this: It was the single biggest mistake of my entire life. I spent six years on it, and I never even went to the opening. It was looked upon as a bomb. And to me it was a bomb. It destroyed my life. Not long after, my accountant got on the phone and said, "You've got to do something because the IRS is going to take the house." He said, "You got thirty-seven dollars to your name." I couldn't even meet Friday's payroll, and the terrible thing about it is that I wasn't even worried. I knew I'd make something happen. And I did. That comes from cojones. That comes from being in a bullring and seeing the horns come at you. I shit in my pants, but I stayed there.
I should, by all reason, be dead. But I'm not dead. I'm five years old. Hey, I can either be five or seventy-two. Being five is the better choice.
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