Sylvester Stallone is, without a doubt, one of the most emblematic Hollywood stars of the 1970s and especially the 1980s. Thanks to the combined popular success of the sagas Rocky And Rambo, he was, with yesterday’s rival Arnold Schwarzenegger, the king of the action film. However, more than just a muscle man, Stallone had already distinguished himself as a screenwriter, then director: a brilliant autodidact, whatever one thinks of the work as a whole. Directed by Thom Zimny, the documentary Sly(Sly. Stallone by Stallone) looks back on all this, and much more, as Stallone, aptly nicknamed “Sly”, opens his archives and his heart with disarming sincerity.
“I have always admired Sly, an actor, a filmmaker, a cultural icon, but the fact is that I knew very little about him — we knew, collectively, very little about him: there had a lot to delve into and unpack,” Thom Zimny summed up in an exclusive interview earlier in September at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Sly was revealed at the end.
Stallone himself approached Thom Zimny, who made his name designing and directing many music documentaries, including several with Bruce Springsteen (Wings for Wheels: The Making of Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band: Live in New York City, Springsteen onBroadway, Northern Stars). This means that in the “cultural icons” department, Zimny has already given.
And this was undoubtedly an essential experience in order not to be intimidated by Stallone, by his aura.
“The first time I met him was at his house. We started talking, and right away, a connection was established between us. He spoke to me about his childhood, and how he had realized, over time, that he had integrated it into his work. »
In the rearview mirror
In fact, in the documentary, Stallone recalls his first years of life in an explosive household, in the then dangerous neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen, in New York (we see him wandering there today under the stunned gaze of onlookers ). A conflictual relationship with a father who was very early jealous of, or rather of, his son’s talents is explored in depth and returns like a leitmotif throughout the documentary.
“What we have here is an artist who contemplates his own existence, who looks in the rearview mirror, and who comments frankly on what he sees. More than that: Sly analyzes what he sees and explains how a particular event influenced a particular project at a particular moment. »
To specify Thom Zimny in an aside: “I am someone who comes from the field of editing [sur la série The Wire], and I kept a habit of cutting everything out in advance, using sketches. At the same time, during a shoot, I try to remain open to everything that the cinema gods can send me. For example, when I made a documentary about Elvis [Elvis Presley: The Searcher, 2018], I found that Graceland was a character in its own right, which I hadn’t anticipated. Same thing with Sly: when I arrived at his house, seeing him in his intimate environment, I understood that his house should be a character, and even more than that. »
In fact, the production of the documentary coincided with the sale of the said property. This means that Stallone had to, in order to better “pack his boxes”, inventory his possessions and examine his archives. These preparations for a move, for news and, according to the main person concerned, last stage of life, became the backbone of the film.
“I began to develop a visual language for the film by incorporating what was in Sly’s little world: the statue in his office, the trinkets, his paintings — he is an extraordinary painter: who would have thought? It seemed to me that this was a powerful way to tell his story, visually. »
Among other examples of the rigor of Stallone’s introspective approach: this passage where we observe him, in his lair, listening to an old interview. In a way that is as hilarious as it is revealing, Stallone interacts with who he was then, (self)criticizing his words with a mixture of amusement and discouragement.
With the same severity, he dissects his past cinematographic achievements, admitting to not having been a gift on FISTby Norman Jewison, from a screenplay of his own, where on the flop Paradise Alley (The tavern from hell), which he wrote and directed, and which suffered from his stubborn refusal to follow any advice whatsoever.
That being said, these are certainly the different Rocky And Rambo which are the most revisited. The genesis of the scenario Rockywhich earned Stallone an Oscar nomination, is particularly captivating: a story of pugnacity on all levels, which saw him go from poverty and anonymity to immediate stardom.
Moving
In the background, it is the story of a success punctuated by setbacks that emerges, which is told to us.
“I always try to go with storytelling, rather than a classic documentary approach,” says Thom Zimny.
“It’s a capture of reality, but told. I didn’t want to put Sly in a chair and stupidly film him while he reminisces about parts of his personal and professional life. I wanted to film him in motion, because, and this is one of the first things that struck me, Sly never stops. I quickly understood that it was up to me to keep the rhythm, because he always has an idea: he is doing a reality TV show. [The Family Stallone/La famille Stallone]he produces this, he writes that, and that makes him think about this, which leads him to remember that…”
Thom Zimny therefore agreed to follow the subject in his universe, without asking him pre-established questions, but rather by bouncing off Stallone’s impromptu confidences and sudden reminiscences. It was, according to the documentary maker, richer, more alive and more real that way.
“When I collaborate with such a famous, well-known person, I try to both keep my feet on the ground and maintain a total open-mindedness. By that I mean, in the case of Sly, that what I knew about him initially came down to my impressions linked to his successive films, linked to my memories of all those video cassettes rented in the 1980s. C ‘is very little; it only represents a tiny part. The key is to listen to the person. Sly, I had no idea, but not at all, how intense his childhood was; to what extent we detect traces of it in his films, in Rocky. I wasn’t prepared for this. And that was a good thing in this case. »
Pausing, Thom Zimny concludes: “What Sly gave me was honest dialogue, because it came from the heart. »
The documentary Sly will be released on Netflix on November 3.