Seberg [DVD]

“Seberg” Distributed by Universal Pictures and Amazon Studios, 102 Minutes, Rated R, Released December 13, 2019:The good news about “Seberg,” the new movie biography of iconic actress Jean Seberg now streaming on Amazon Prime, is that it’s a virtual treasure chest of riches for those people who love bad movies. Despite a strong performance from Kristen Stewart in the title role, the film is defeated by misinformation, lurid dialogue, and leaps of logic that would tax the imagination of The Brothers Grimm.“Seberg” depicts 1960s American expatriate actress Jean Seberg in the later stages of her career, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. While flying to Los Angeles from the Paris home she shares with novelist Romain Gary and their toddler son to test for a role in the big budget Lerner and Loewe musical “Paint Your Wagon,” Seberg witnesses on the plane an act of blatant racial bigotry--a flight attendant attempts to evict black activist Hakim Jamal from the first class seat he reserved and purchased.Jean intervenes, and expresses simpatico with the black man. And when on arrival at the Los Angeles airport the actress impulsively poses with Jamal for the assembled press corps with the raised fist salute of the Black Power movement, she’s marked by the FBI as a political agitator and enemy of the United States government. Seberg’s friendship and developing romance with Hakim Jamal result in a decade-long campaign by the FBI to infiltrate her activities, destroy her family, and eventually ruin her life.Written by Joe Shrapnel and Anna Waterhouse and directed in his second filmmaking effort by Australian-born and Iceland-based theater director Benedict Andrews, “Seberg” sketches in very broad strokes and simplistic terms a complicated and troubling time in American history, and reduces a turbulent era in political awareness to stereotypes, with scenes almost more appropriate to a parody. As a historical chronicle, “Seberg” is misleading at best, and as a biography it’s insulting...although some of the subject matter, much of it still disgracefully unresolved, will inevitably cause the picture to seem quite contemporary.The film is only watchable as a means of introducing to modern viewers a genuinely gifted American actress who needed to leave the United States to achieve her greatest success...and for a carefully shaded portrayal by actress Kristen Stewart of a genuine icon of modern cinema. You can easily see what drew Stewart to the role, and she contributes a solid performance. But she’s defeated by a flawed and often sophomoric script, lurid dialogue, and a howler of a subplot about a conflicted FBI agent (Jack O’Connell) who becomes infatuated with Seberg and achieves both political enlightenment and spiritual redemption through stalking her.Still, Stewart successfully captures Seberg’s waif-like appeal, and despite being a little too forceful as a performer to accurately simulate the actress’ fragile persona portrays with sensitivity an actress who refused to play by the traditional rules of Hollywood convention, and ultimately suffered as a result. Stewart’s great in the role (Time Magazine listed her performance among the Ten Best of 2019)...but the historical Jean Seberg might’ve been more accurately portrayed by actress Michelle Williams.“Seberg” premiered at the Venice Film Festival in August of 2019. The picture was also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in early September before being distributed in December to select theaters in Los Angeles in order to qualify Stewart for Academy Award consideration. The film was circulated sporadically to theaters across the United States, but its run was truncated by the closure of movie theaters due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During its release, “Seberg” earned only some $675,808 in box office receipts against a bare-bones budget of $8 million.Jean Seberg is probably best known today for her role as the harried airline executive in unlikely love with Burt Lancaster’s equally-harried airport manager in the 1970 megahit “Airport”...although she’ll likely always be revered to cinemaphiles as the tragic heroine of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic of French New Wave Cinema, “Breathless.”During the self-same time period portrayed in “Seberg,” Jean Seberg’s contemporary and philosophical soulmate Jane Fonda often seemed almost to go out of her way to court bitter controversy with her radical political activism while her career flourished. Fonda actually won the first of her two Academy Awards during her most turbulent period of social activism.Also featuring performance by Anthony Mackie as Hakim Jamal, Vince Vaughn as a brutal and amoral FBI field supervisor, and Yvan Attal as writer Romain Gary, “Seberg” is rated R for language including crude racial epithets, thematic elements, and a scene of sensuality.

It seems like some of the reviews are really based on the person’s bias towards the events, rather then the story itself. And that is sad. For people who lived through that time, the turbulent time of the late 1960's, it was perhaps the strongest assertion of black rights in that very chaotic time, and it was particularly troublesome to the political power structure. This movie captured nicely a snapshot of that time, portraying the FBI destruction of Jean Seberg simply because she supported a cause Hoover did not. And the depths that Hoover ordered the FBI to sink to would be expected to be in the past, but perhaps it is still present in a different form. For those who think the film is all fiction, the postscripts refer to a break in that exposed what the FBI was up to. That break in, of the Media, PA FBI office in March 1971 exposed that tremendous resources of the FBI were expended not in going after criminals, but in going after political enemies of the power structure. And she was a victim, since she supported Black causes. So is the movie a documentary, or a fictionalization of an event? Well, while it is impossible to verify everything, it certainly accurately portrayed the extent of what the FBI did when a person was labeled an ‘enemy’ and targeted for being destroyed. Constitutional protections were considered a mere hindrance of the goal. The power that Hoover had was perhaps unparalleled in American justice annals. And this movie puts it on full display. If a person lived through those times, this movie will elicit powerful emotions. And raise troubling parallels to what is happening today. In some ways, things really have not progressed all that much. One can find faults with the acting or the script, but it is the message that really carries the movie. Crossing power entails risk. She was warned she would be destroyed. She didn’t believe it. She was wrong.

Jean Seberg was an American actress who lived half of her life in France. Many will probably not remember her today as she died in 1979, although her short 'pixie crop' is both memorable and very striking.Because of her support of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly the Black Panther Party, she became the object of a 'dirty tricks' campaign ordered by FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover, personally, with the full knowledge of President Nixon. She was subjected to constant stalking, phone tapping and break-ins; she was harassed, intimidated and defamed in an attempt to cheapen her image. All this led to her progressive mental deterioration and the premature birth of a still born daughter, which further increased her ill health.The film deals with Ms Seberg arriving in America where she was contracted to a film studio and her initial involvement with the Black Panther Party. Much of the film is then covers her battle with the FBI. Finally she returns to Paris.I enjoyed the film and particularly Kristen Stewart's performance as Jean Seberg herself. I am unsure how much is factual and how much 'it might have happened'.Unfortunately the film falls rather flat at the end, with a narrator simply saying that she committed suicide. The reported facts, however, are more curious than simply that: Jean Seberg disappeared on the night of August 30th and her body was found in her car, near her Paris flat, a full nine days later. She was wrapped in a blanket on the back seat. The Paris police reported that her body contained so much alcohol that she would not have been able to reach, get into, and let alone drive her car and yet there was no alcohol found in the car. The conclusion was that someone else may have been present around the time of her death.In 1980 the Paris police filed charges against person or persons unknown in connection with her death. But that was forty years ago...

Kristen Stewart was very impressive. Well acted Well Made. I liked it. True story of actress Jean Seberg.

A superb production and performance.Kristen Stewart is utterly astounding with her incredible and very credible portrayal of the elfen like, morally strong character that was Jean Seberg.Both emotionally fragile and strong willed, this gradual build up of tension, placed upon her life from all sides, draws out both the determination and paranoia she both stroved with and succumbed to.This brilliantly directed story, with its on point styling of the era, original footage of incidents and people involved in her life, the boldness and subtlety, the strength and gentleness, the very human, and importantly, political ambiance that whirled around Seberg, is masterfully and poignantly crafted into a flowing thriller of human rights activism, counter intelligence and espionage that eventually brought her down.This film and it's undercurrent is very current in that it shows very clearly what hasn't changed in White amerika! Still relevent and very visceral today at the end of a topsy-turvy world of our early 2020's US politics and social injustic implimented by vile, biased ideologies back by corrupt politics and Police state brutality.Believe the hype.This is a stellar film and performance, coming from both star and supporting cast. Worthy of every award and accolade out there.

In the 1960's, Hollywood actress and French New Wave icon Jean Seberg is targeted by the FBI because of her support of black civil rights and her romantic involvement with one of its leaders. Based on a true story, this is a slow but gripping biopic with an excellent performance from Kristen Stewart as Jean Seberg and very good supporting performances from Anthony Mackie, Jack O'Connell, Zaszie Beets, Colm Meaney and Vince Vaughn as the FBI look to single handedly discredit and ruin Seberg.

Kristen Stewart is great in the movie but the movie begins when she is already famous. This version of the film is for All-Region players as it will not work in North American DVD's, so be careful when ordering it!