Use of Long "Torn Curtain" Clip In Ethan Hawke's HBO Max Documentary on Paul Newman/Joanne Woodward

I am taking the liberty of "re-posting" this discussion by moviechat poster "swanstep" on how the July 2022 HBO Max documentary series "The Last Movie Stars" (about husband and wife Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward) uses a clip from "Torn Curtain" to illustrate the tragic loff of Paul Newman's only son, Scott, to a drug overdose in 1978:

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OK, Torn Curtain is finally properly acknowledged half-way though Episode 5 with a chunk of the Gromek chase. The clip is used quite artsily - in fact it's probably Hawkes's biggest directorial flourish so far to do this(Host and documentary director Ethan Hawke). Episode 5 is focused on Newman's struggle to connect with and ultimately keep alive his son Scott (from his first Marriage). We hear Newman (voiced by George Clooney) wrestle fro 5 minutes or so with how he might be failing his son, with what his responsibility for Scott's self-destructiveness might be, and as a visual counterpart we see Gromek start shadowing Newman then follow him throughout labyrinthine museums as Newman's character tries to lose him. It's a very bold, even brilliant visual embodiment of Newman's 'anguished wrestling with shadows' state of mind. And compared to almost everything else we've seen excerpted so far, Torn Curtain looks like an art-film, geometric, abstract, highly designed, camera's alive, and the city and locations all feel busy & sinister. Hitchcock is a hell of a visual director, and Newman feels dominated by those visuals in a way that never happens with his other directors...

....Looking back, the sequence really is terrific, probably *the* highlight of the series for me. Torn Curtain is an unloved Hitchcock film, not least by its star. Who would have believed that one of its key sequences would function (with appropriate framing) after Newman's death as an image of the moment in Newman's life when he felt maximally trapped and helpless and lost? I think TC will play differently for me after this and wonder if this meta-repurposing of one of the acknowledged highlights of TC will be an important part of TC's legacy from now on. I'll now always think about how Newman's acting style competes with Hitchcock's visuals, and in this central sequence I'll think about how Newman ends up isolated in the center of the frame, how he's flattened and trapped by the highly designed image. Newman thrived in the more relaxed, more actor-centric frames of less visual, serve-the-story-type directors like George Roy Hill, with Ritt, Rosenberg, and Rossen being intermediate cases.

This line of thought has also got me thinking about Newman's successors, and how they've been a little more bold. Cruise put himself through the wringer for PTA and Kubrick; Clooney has allowed himself to be visually dominated by both the Coens and Wes Anderson; ditto Brad Pitt with Fincher.

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Thank you for these insights, swanstep!

Signed, "ecarle."