Jean Seberg: Actress, Activist, Icon

I recently watched Jean Seberg Actress, Activist, Icon on disc. The documentary offered a multi-faceted look at an actress perhaps more known for her hair style than acting ability.

I have never been one of Seberg's admirers. With the exception of Breathless, none of the few other films I had seen Seberg in had impressed me. The documentary does a good job at showing that Seberg was more known and respected for her films made in France than most of her underused efforts in America.

However, the documentary is more than just a cheering section for Seberg the actress. Regardless of what a viewer thinks of Seberg as an actress, the ups and downs of her life make for riveting viewing. The second section ("Activist") is the most interesting section of the film. Seberg's sister offers the most emotionally moving stories (one is so painful that she cannot bring herself to finish it).

The documentary is not flawless. There are a few points that remain unclear. The most glaring example involves the story of a house that Seberg bought in her hometown of Marshalltown, Iowa for a group of African American college students in the 1960s. The documentary states that, "Marshalltown never forgave Seberg for that house." However, what exactly happened regarding the house and how the town's animosity for the actress was shown is never explained by the documentary filmmakers.

In spite of the oversight, Jean Seberg Actress, Activist, Icon remains a powerful film. I began this documentary with some hesitation. However, I was surprised by how moved I was by the not quite Cinderella story of Jean Seberg.

Jean Seberg was a stunningly beautiful movie star -- and small-town Iowa native -- whose inner beauty proved some of her most important work never appeared on screen.

These lasting legacies of film magic and selfless social activism are sensitively captured in the new documentary, "Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg."

More than 20 years in the making (since conceived by Seberg author Garry McGee of Elma, Iowa), the intensely personal, illuminating and sympathetic 93-minute portrait was produced by Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Moline-based Fourth Wall Films with Mr. McGee, who filmed key interviews with Seberg family and friends in the 1990s.

Some of the most moving footage comes from a 1991 interview with Seberg's sister, Mary Ann, who appears in her first on-camera interview and recalls that Jean declared she wanted to be a movie star at age 5. She was dead by 40, of an apparent suicide, which remains mysteriously questioned in the documentary.

Born in 1938 in Marshalltown, Iowa, Seberg shot to international stardom short of her 18th birthday when she was picked from among 18,000 applicants to play Joan of Arc in Otto Preminger's "Saint Joan" (1957). She went on to star in 37 films (over 22 years) in America and abroad, including the landmark French New Wave film "Breathless" (1960), by director Jean-Luc Godard.

From her high school drama teacher to others who knew her best, we learn what made Seberg special -- from her large, hypnotic eyes to a trend-setting fashion sense, to a thoughtfulness and intelligence that radiated from everything she did.

Mary Ann relates how Jean was ahead of her time in many ways, including her interest in politics, medicine, social justice and philanthropy. We see how she worked for the underdog, the underprivileged, and just wanted to make the world a better place. An interview with a 1950s-era Iowa governor shows Seberg as chair of a "Teenagers Against Polio" group, supporting the March of Dimes.

Seberg joined the NAACP at age 14, was an advocate for the Meskawki Tribe in Tama, Iowa (near Marshalltown), was active in the civil rights movement, and was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover with a successful F.B. I. smear campaign. That, according to the filmmakers, is the reason she has been largely forgotten by Iowa and America.

"She was a person, like all of us, who made good choices and bad choices," Mr. McGee said in a release on the film. "There were things that happened to her that she didn't deserve. Jean was just trying to do what was right. You see a consistent thread throughout her life of reaching out to people who had fewer opportunities than she had."

One of the highlights of the biographical film -- filled with private family photos and video -- is an interview with former Black Panther Party leader Elaine Brown, who was Seberg's friend at the time the F.B.I. targeted the Panthers (Seberg supported the civil-rights group's free breakfast program for children). Hoover personally issued a memorandum saying that Seberg should be "neutralized," and the actress' phones were tapped and agents were assigned to follow her.

"Her career was destroyed. Her marriage was destroyed. Her life was destroyed by what they did," Ms. Brown said.

"The documentary strips away the Hollywood gossip, the national media hype, and the F.B.I. propaganda to find a young woman of conscience embroiled in the important issues of her day," producer Kelly Rundle said in the release. "She also carved out a unique and important international film career."

An F.B.I.-instigated rumor while Seberg was pregnant with her second child said the father was a "black militant." At the time, she was married to French novelist/diplomat Romain Gary, with whom she had a son in 1962.

The story was printed as fact in Newsweek and 100 newspapers in August 1970. A shocked Seberg went into labor three months early. The child, Nina (conceived from an affair), lived for just two days. Seberg took her dead daughter to Marshalltown for burial to show the public the rumor was a lie, and her friend and musician Mark Adams-Westin (who played at the funeral) is interviewed in the film.

He wistfully recalls in that era, artists weren't about making money but "about being human and humane," Mr. Adams-Westin said. "That was something Jean had and Jean shared." He and his wife Amy (from St. Paul, Minn.) will provide music at a reception before Saturday's Figge screening.

After being reported missing Aug. 30, 1979, Jean Seberg's dead body was found Sept. 8, nude, wrapped in a blanket in the back seat of her parked car, just blocks from her Paris apartment. The official report showed she overdosed on prescription drugs and had a high blood-alcohol level. In the documentary, doubts are raised that she killed herself.

Seberg's heart and tenderness also "lit up the screen," Mr. Adams- Westin says in this beautiful, bittersweet film. "Her beauty was from the inside out and that made her a movie star, the genuine love that she had, that she shared on screen."

He will be among a post-screening panel that will answer audience questions Saturday. In addition to the Rundles and Mr. McGee, the Q&A will also include Richard Ness, associate professor of film and media studies at Western Illinois University, who's also in "Movie Star."

The Rundles received a Midwest Regional Emmy nomination for their documentary "Country School: One Room – One Nation," and multiple awards for their documentaries "Lost Nation: The Ioway" (1, 2 & 3) and "Villisca: Living with a Mystery."

Mr. McGee is the author of "Jean Seberg: Breathless" and co-author of "Neutralized: The FBI vs Jean Seberg" and "The Films of Jean Seberg." He received a Midwest Regional Emmy nomination for writing on "The Last Wright," a documentary he co-produced with Lucille Carra.

*** Originally published on QCOnline.com.

I begin my review by saying that I am totally biased about Jean Seberg. She was from my hometown Marshalltown, Iowa. As a kid, breathing her name bespoke all of the possibilities that a yearning artist could ever hope to attain: overnight success, world fame, talent, and radiant beauty.

Jean's Father, Ed Seberg, was one of my father's good friends, and dad acted as his family attorney. My dad had looked over the contracts from Otto Preminger after he had discovered Jean. One of my dreams, to work for Ed at, my favorite store, Seberg Pharmacy, was attained during my 2 years at Marshalltown Community College from 1969 through 1971. Ed was and, though gone, still is one of my heroes. He was a great, kind, wonderfully hospitable, strong yet gentle man.

Meeting Jean the first time, on one of her visits from Paris France, was quick, but remarkable. I had never been this close to a real movie star, and one who was far more beautiful in person than on screen. I was to enter Jean's life in a very real way in September of 1970. It was the summer she had lost her child Nina Hart Gary due, in no small measure, to the brutal smear campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover and shared with the world by Newsweek Magazine. I was to sing two songs at Nina's memorial service, held open casket in Marshalltown to prove to the world that Nina was not, as the FBI and Newsweek claimed, the child of a Black Panther Activist. Jean and I bonded and she made this 19-year-old singer/songwriter feel special and talented. She also opened his eyes to some of the real world issues of the day. We continued to write and would see each other again on one of her dwindling visits to town.

In 1979 I learned that she had been found dead of a "probable suicide" in Paris 10 days after she had gone missing. In some ways I have cried for that tragic loss since that day. Ed & Dorothy, who had already lost a Son in 1968, would never recover from both the loss of their daughter and the loss of the unquestioning love of the nation which had allowed their daughter to be swept out of their lives due to malicious lies.

So I am very protective of Jean, Ed, Dorothy, and the wonderful Seberg Family, and I have a deep distaste for J. Edgar Hoover and Newsweek. I also have a distaste for those who would sensationalize Jean's already tragic, and sensational enough, life. Books, plays, and films have already been done that were so out of touch with reality and painted a picture of Ed and the family that were so off base, that I would not have been involved even so far as to tell my Jean story.

Several years back Kelly & Tammy Rundle of Fourth Wall Films, and Jean's already biographer, Garry McGee and I got in contact about their, nearly 20 years in the works, film. I agreed to an interview, but was a bit shy of their take on Jean and the family. In the interview I was relieved that their take was quite humane, and that they were committed to an accurate portrayal.

In the three years that followed Kelly, Tammy, and Garry decided that some of my and my wife's music (Amy & Adams) would be perfect for MOVIE STAR. This made us both excited and nervous for the Premiere at The Orpheum Theater on November 15, 2013.

As the film began we were swept away, first by the tears of Mary Ann, Jean's sister, then by Jeans radiance even as a child, her fairy tale discovery, and her up and down road to international stardom and icon, cemented by the French New Wave movie BREATHLESS.

As the story turned from movie to political history we were swept along with Jean into the maelstrom that was the Civil Rights movement of the 50s, 60s, and 70s. But through it all we were not directed by the filmmakers as to how we should feel. One of the strengths of MOVIE STAR, and there are so many, is there seem to be few, if any, finger prints from the film makers.

At the end of the film Amy and I and the audience dwelt in rapt silence until we finally burst into applause. We had just gone on a 93 minute journey with the film makers into the complex life of, a very human, humane, talented, incredibly vulnerable and yet immensely strong, stunningly beautiful, and iconic MOVIE STAR. Though she has been largely forgotten in the US, even in her own Home Town, Jean Seberg remains an international fashion and film Icon. Since that moment I've seen MOVIE STAR once more in full and once again in part. Each time I've been stunned, saddened, exhilarated, shamed, lift up, and left for long moments quite BREATHLESS.

The new documentary Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg (2013) is very educational and entertaining at the same time. I loved seeing the tributes to each segment of Jean's life. It was very interesting to hear the comments of people she encountered during her life and career too. Family and friends from her hometown as well as across the ocean to Europe. It is a film definitely worth seeing. You'll learn, not only, about Jean Seberg's life from childhood in her Iowa home to her growth to stardom and the FBI scandals that surrounded her reputation and may even have led to her untimely death. One of the producers, Garry McGee has also written books about her life and career. Tammy and Kelly Rundells worked with Garry and researched for years to put this documentary together and make it a fitting memorial of the life of Jean Seberg.