It’s late August. Our brains have been fried by lust for Nastia Liukin Olympic spirit. We’re ten days away from the start of fall festival season/Oscar frenzy proper. For these reasons and probably loads more, we woke up this morning desperately in need of something to obsess over that would involve no brain power whatsoever.
And Thom Powers, in his infinite wisdom as documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival, provided, by programming Paris, Not France, a documentary which purports to offer an exploration of “the businesswoman and the human being behind the public persona that is Paris Hilton…Modelled [sic] after the 1960s “it”-girl film Darling.” We’ve thus spent half the day digging up as much info on the film as we can find. Here’s what we know as of 2:04 PM, August 19, 2008:
The film was directed by Adria Petty, daughter of Tom Petty. Petty started filming Hilton during the making of her 2006 album. On the YouTube channel for Petty’s production company, there is a video (above) of Ms. Hilton recording (or pretending to) a song from that album, called “Jealousy”, which is allegedly about her rivalry with sometime friend Nicole Richie. In fact, it’s possible that this film has been finished for quite awhile. It’s not listed on Petty’s imdb profile, in an interview dated January 2008, Petty referred to the film in the past tense.
A gossip columnist at the Times Online has either seen Paris, Not France or has been nudged to try to create “controversy” around it. Saying that the film is “Not what Hilton’s people had hoped for,” Jessica Brinton goes on to describe Not France as “a rather brilliant exposé” that reaveals “that Paris has a very deep voice, is frequently in tears and doesn’t like being a celebrity as much as you might think, and is actually quite a sweetie.” So…uh…what did Hilton’s people hope for, exactly? I don’t know if it’s any commentary on how “exposing” of a film she’s made, but Petty was thanked in Hilton’s album notes: “To Adria Petty for always being honest with me and making history.”
Finally: in Darling, Julie Christie won an Oscar for playing a bored model who sleeps with a number of rich men, has an orgy, and gets an abortion. I’ll just throw that out there without comment.
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SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth