Reggie Nicholson and Henry Corra codirected documentary about Reggie’s inspirational battle with cancer
FAREWELL TO HOLLYWOOD: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF REGGIE NICHOLSON (Henry Corra & Reggie Nicholson, 2015)
Cinema Village
22 East 12th St. between University Pl. & Fifth Ave.
Opens Wednesday, February 25
212-924-3363
www.farewelltohollywood.com
www.cinemavillage.com
An unsettling feeling of creepiness hovers over Farewell to Hollywood, the controversial documentary codirected by filmmaker Henry Corra and teenager Regina Diane “Reggie” Nicholson, who wanted to complete one full-length work before she died of cancer. Corra, whose mentor was David Maysles — when he was twenty-two, Corra saw Grey Gardens, then went to New York and asked the Maysles brothers for a job and was hired on the spot — met Nicholson at a film festival in 2010 and was so taken by her story, he decided to collaborate with her on her dream project. Corra and Nicholson spent most of the next twenty-one months together, compiling more than four hundred hours of footage as Reggie had tests done, got into a nasty battle with her parents, and watched films that inspired her, including Apocalypse Now, The Graduate, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and, most importantly, Pulp Fiction; Reggie was particularly obsessed with Uma Thurman’s character in Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 Oscar-nominated flick. But as is his style in such previous films as George, Jack and The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan, Corra inserts himself into the story, in this case becoming Reggie’s primary caretaker as the cancer begins to ravage her body and she insists on keeping the camera running. It’s all part of what Corra calls “living cinema,” becoming involved in the lives of his subjects, not merely being an objective viewer, and it’s clear that at least some of Reggie’s often ugly battle with her parents is a result of her relationship with Corra. Although it is not sexual in any way, Corra does admit to loving Reggie, and vice versa, something that Reggie’s father finds inappropriate and leads to Corra’s banishment from the Nicholson home twice, which means he’s unable to film Reggie for extended periods of time. Much has been argued about whether Corra overstepped the ethical bounds of documentary filmmaking — he staunchly defends his approach, claiming he’s making art, not mere entertainment, and he doesn’t even like the word “documentary” — but there’s something chilling in this comment he made to Indiewire in an October 2014 interview: “I cared about [Reggie] so much and I knew she was going to die that in many ways I was no different than the mother. That’s the thing most people don’t pick up on, that me and the mother are very similar in this movie.”
There is no denying that Farewell to Hollywood depicts Reggie, who made the short Glimpse of Horizon in 2010, as a brave, bold teen who looks death square in the face and is determined to get as much out of life as she possibly can in the limited time she has. The camera loves her like it’s a member of her family. There are poignant, powerful moments throughout the film, which was produced by Lance Armstrong and his Livestrong foundation, involving Reggie, Corra, and the Nicholsons, but it’s hard not to think that Corra is responsible for much of that drama. He has cited such influences as Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, in which the author becomes part of the story of two mass murderers; Cindy Sherman, a wildly successful photographer who has built a career out of taking pictures of herself in a multitude of costumes and situations that blur the lines between fiction and nonfiction; and David and Albert Maysles, who allowed themselves to be seen and heard in their documentaries. Corra was also likely impacted by the loss of his brother, Tom, a musician who died of cancer in 1998 at the age of forty-four. Corra has professed to be a character-based storyteller, and there are certainly well-defined, fascinating characters in Farewell to Hollywood, but since one of them is him, and his involvement appears to have had a direct impact on the life of the Nicholson family, something seems seriously amiss here. Corra, who is in his fifties, might not be manipulating the action on purpose — he clearly cares deeply about Reggie — but even the film’s U.S. theatrical release date feels like it’s all part of a master plan: Farewell to Hollywood opens on February 25 (at Cinema Village in New York City), which just happens to be Reggie’s birthday; had she lived, she would have been twenty-two.