Over the long Thanksgiving weekend in 1981, the superstar actress Natalie Wood drowned in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Catalina Island. The last two people to see her alive were husband, actor Robert Wagner and actor Christopher Walken. It seems likely that the prevailing official explanation—which is that she slipped on the deck of her yacht late at night while trying to better secure the rubber dinghy tied to its side and no one heard because Wagner and Walken were having a drunken argument—truly depicts the end of Wood’s life. But given that Wood was one of the most famous women in Hollywood and that US media consumers love salacious stories and conspiracies, there have always been doubts. Did Wagner kill her? What does Walken know? Did she really just fall and hit her head? Could a screen queen so beautiful and so much bigger than life really meet her end in such unglamorous fashion?
The poorly-titled documentary Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind eventually gets round to the speculation surrounding her death, but her life as a film star, mother and wife are its true subjects. The film is helmed more by its producer—Wood’s oldest daughter Natasha—than by its director, so it is no surprise that it functions as something of a paean to the late star. Not that Natalie Wood does not deserve to be celebrated. She was a Hollywood lifer who began acting at the age of four. She worked with legendary actors such as James Dean and Robert Redford (who gets quite a bit of screen time) and celebrated directors such as Elia Kazan and Nicholas Ray. She was nominated for three Academy Awards in acting and bravely took on the studio bosses to gain more creative control over her career. But the film is little more than an encomium of its subject.
As far as hagiographies go, it’s enjoyable. Wood genuinely was one of the most interesting people in Hollywood in the ‘60s and her epic parties were attended by a veritable Who’s Who of the most glamorous and beautiful people in the world; Fred Astaire would sing over cocktails and Sean Connery would stop by for a quick chat at her soirees. The doc includes home movies of Wood and her daughters, discusses her roller-coaster love life and investigates Wood’s tenuous relationship with her tough-love Russian émigré mother. For anyone who loves movies in general, and the decadent pre-Movie Brats films of the ‘60s especially, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind is a good hang. Think Once Upon a Time in Hollywood with fewer horses and more swimming pools.
But the many viewers seeking clarity about Wood’s death will find little satisfaction. Natasha Wood loves Robert Wagner and believes the official story that her mother simply slipped, hit her head and fell unconscious into the Pacific where she drowned. For the record, that official story seems highly probable. Because Natasha has no doubts, the film does not have doubts, and the little screen time it gives to the “controversy” over whether Wood was murdered is devoted to dispelling the notions of a conspiracy. In these days of the “Plandemic,” however, it is doubtful that those who believe Wood was killed in cold blood will be at all convinced by this documentary’s efforts at clarifying the truth.
The post Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind appeared first on Spectrum Culture.