By Ryan Joe
DAILY BRUIN CONTRIBUTOR
[email protected]
 USA Films
Robert Evans (left) with Jack Nicholson, the star of his 1975
film “Chinatown.”
Producer Robert Evans led the ultimate Hollywood life ““
one filled with triumph, torment, love, lust, friendship, betrayal,
wheeling, dealing and cocaine. He reached his peak in the
’70s producing numerous classics in American cinema including
“Rosemary’s Baby,” “Chinatown” and
“The Godfather.” But scandals, accusations of murder
and box office flops in the ’80s nearly killed Evans, sending
him from a life of glamour to a life spent guttering about as a
Hollywood has-been.
Now Evans is the subject in a new documentary, “The Kid
Stays in the Picture,” chronicling the Hollywood icon’s
life as a mogul. Brett Morgen and Nanette Burstein directed the
film based on Evans’ autobiography.
At a recent interview, Evans sat down, wearing a blue turtleneck
and a bolo tie under a pristine white pant suit that offset his
burnished bronze skin. He had a sharp nose, on which sat a pair of
smoked glasses, the same color as his salt-and-pepper hair.
As Evans spoke in his thick voice, he stretched a rubber band
between his fingers as if exercising them.
“Hello, hello,” he said, and immediately his voice
was recognizably alluring. The film makes it clear Evans could
probably charm the skin off a rattlesnake.
“The crazy thing about Bob is that Bob, and this happens
over and over, basically ruins our lives, stabs us in the back, and
by the end, we’re apologizing to him,” Burstein said.
“Bob is one of the most successful seducers of the past 60
years.”
The directors sought to capture Evans’ charm in their
film, according to Morgen. The film distorts, colorizes or
otherwise animates photographs to convey the sense of vibrancy in
Evans’ life.
“Using imagery to seduce is the essence of
filmmaking,” Morgen said. “By distorting each photo, we
are giving a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to the audience that this film
is all told through Evans’ singular voice.”
The filmmakers did not attempt to factually retell events.
Instead they tried to recapture Evans’ memories of his
Hollywood past.
These memories run the gamut from the exhilarating, romantic and
schmaltzy to the depressing and deeply personal.
“It ain’t a Disney book,” Evans said. “I
wrote it to let my son know who I was.”
Joshua Evans, a filmmaker in his own right and Evans’ only
son, grew up living with his mother, actress Ali MacGraw. According
to Evans, the book helped him reach out to a son he didn’t
know.
If Evans wrote the book to introduce himself to his son, then
Morgen and Burstein made the film to introduce Evans to the
mainstream. Both Burstein and Morgen approached the documentary as
something that could potentially reach wide audiences, something
they felt should have a theatrical release instead of being
relegated to the small screen on HBO. Consequently, the filmmakers
sought to reduce the largely anecdotal book into a story with a
concise arc.
The film, at 88 minutes, is like a large, bombastic flipbook of
Evans’ life. At times, the film might seem to sugarcoat the
grime and grit which dominated Evans’ life for a brief
period. At this, Evans grins.
“Lemme tell you ““ it’s a lot easier to watch
it than to live it,” Evans said.