Before it was the acceptable thing to do in Hollywood, Montgomery Clift marched to the beat of this own drum. In an era ruled by the studios, Monty refused to be owned by one- creating autonomy over his own career. It’s evident that Monty lead an interesting and eventful life, but over the years the fragments of his story have been haphazardly pieced together by the media, biographers, and classic film enthusiasts. Over the decades, the real Montgomery Clift was lost in the romanticism of tragedy, and forced narratives.
Aiming to continue the work of father Brooks Clift, directors Robert A. Clift and Hillary Demmon took on the monumental task of revisiting Monty’s narrative. Over time, Monty had at times become more synonymous with his sexuality than with his prolific body of work. Making Montgomery Clift humanizes the man behind the famous persona.
During the Los Angeles Film Festival, Film Inquiry was able to sit down with Making Montgomery Clift directors Robert A. Clift and Hillary Demmon and speak with them about the process behind the documentary, and retelling Monty’s story, and what audiences can learn from it.
Adriana Gomez-Weston for Film Inquiry: When did you decide was the right time to do this documentary, so that you could tell Monty’s story in the way that it should be told?
Hillary Demmon: It was a kind of funny way that we got started. We have been talking about doing this for a number of years. The actual inciting incident was that we went to sell our car and this person who was working at the Carmax is related to Robert.
Robert A. Clift: We were at Carmax outside of Washington D.C., and the person across the table from us, his name was Montgomery Blair. Montgomery Blair was my grandmother’s grandfather.
Hillary Demmon: We realized that we were related and we had this whole conversation about Monty with this stranger. We didn’t end up selling the car, and we ended getting in the car and thought, “We should really just start doing this now!”
What is it like growing up related to someone who you have learned about mostly through other people, and having to piece parts of their personality through their stories?
Robert A. Clift: What happens is you become very aware, hypersensitive of the way that that person who’s a popular figure is mediated through everybody else’s images of him and the way that everybody else discusses him. For example, watching Monty in a film; the experience always felt like a documentary. I was watching Monty – not the person I knew, but yes the person I was related to. I wondered, “Does he look like my father? Is there a chance that other people have certain resemblances to him, or walk like him, or gestures that seem similar?” Also, you’re thinking about all the stories that circulate around that figure.
The stories are both private family stories and also very public visible stories. A corollary to that is that often when I met people growing up, and if they knew Montgomery Clift, they would often talk about him in a way that a very authoritative discussion. They would talk about him like they almost knew him. It was always so odd to me because it was the opposite of what I felt, which I was always hyper aware that I did not know him personally.
How did you knowledge of Monty and your relationship with your father shape your interest in filmmaking, specifically documentaries?
Robert A. Clift: In the very beginning when me and Hillary started to make this film, my mother jokes that the film should be titled: “The Uncle I Never Knew, the Father I Barely Knew, and the Mother That Made it All Happen.” Of course Monty and my father influenced my decision to make films. I’m also reminded of the fact that my mother, who is a reporter – her respect for reporting, or in my field what we call research, is really key. I think that this film, for both Hillary and I, owes a lot to her influence.
Continuing on that, why do you think this “tortured” narrative stuck the way it did even though it seems to not be the case? Do you think it had anything to do with how we tend to romanticize a lot of classic film stars and icons of the past. Not all of the books about Monty are completely researched and provide conflicting information.
Hillary Demmon: We’re talking about all of this in 2018. We have had a cultural shift in how we look at queer people, and queer lives, and queer history. Hopefully that shift will keep going in the right direction, and then more people will understand those things. At the time that Monty’s narrative was being put together, culturally we were not where we are now. Where we are now is not perfect, but it’s further along than where it was. Some of the beliefs that people had in the mainstream about queer people, we know that they had a lot of damaging stereotypes that existed that have been hard to get past.
If you are using narratives that link up with those ideas, they felt true to people at the time most likely. Since they feel true, it’s easier to say that they are. Because we have made some progress on all of this, some of these things don’t register the same way now, so they don’t feel like they’re true necessarily. I don’t want to say it looks true, but it feels like it needs re-examination. I think we have that chance to do that now in the time that we’re in.
What do you think about how we perceive celebrities today? There are a lot of attempts to control their own narratives, especially with social media at its peak.
Robert A. Clift: I think that there are a few things at play. One of them, with Monty at least, is that we was actively trying to control his image at certain points in his career. That didn’t always work in his favor. Celebrities in general are very aware that they’re people and they have personalities, but their names are also commodities. I think that they are very aware of the way that they are represented by the press. If it’s unfair, it can essentially ruin their livelihood. I think it’s a natural response to want to control one’s narrative. It’s not always something that we necessarily want in all circumstances but it makes sense that people would actively try to control the narrative that circulates about them.
Can you explain the process of making this documentary, especially going through the wealth of information left behind by Monty and your father?
Robert A. Clift: I can tell you I’ve benefited a lot from working with Hillary, especially with my father’s tapes, it would have been emotionally very difficult for me to go through so many hours of them.
Hillary Demmon: It was a lot. The film is 90 minutes – obviously not all 90 minutes are archival material, but even if all 90 minutes were archival material, it would still be a fraction of what was there to be gone through, and listened through. Deciding what went in, we had specific concerns when looking at Monty’s image. There were all kinds of things that we would have liked to put in, but they didn’t pertain. There’s a ton of interesting material and it’s a lot of really hard choices to make because there’s fantastic material that you want people to hear, but we have to go for a cohesive story too.
RC: That story is very much the way that Monty’s story has been told. His posthumous image has been told. We’re looking at the way that he comes together as a public personality.
How difficult was it to approach other relatives and friends about Monty?
Robert A. Clift: It’s somehow a trueism of every documentary that once you turn on the camera, people open up. I don’t know exactly why that happened, but everybody was very open. I really appreciated that.
Hillary Demmon: I don’t know if we really knew going in how people were going to feel about the whole thing. Like Robert said, having the camera present gives you the opportunity to take the time and sit down to have those very focused conversations. You’re getting everybody together for a holiday is like frequently, you’re not just going to sit down and ask, “How did everything go down? How did this person feel?” You don’t have that kind of focus to drill down. Having the camera really does make a change in the kind of communications you can have about your history.
What do you hope audiences will gain from this documentary, and about Monty?
Robert A. Clift: That they’re able to approach him and his legacy in a way that is divorced from these outdated stereotypes that became attached to him.
Hillary Demmon: I think that being able to see that in Monty’s work, in his life there were a lot of ways to read him as a public figure. Our read on time, in terms of of where we spent time looking at where his passions took him. We saw a lot integrity and creativity, and independence.
Making Montgomery Clift is currently on the festival circuit. For more release information, you can check the IMDB page.
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