‘Sinatra,’ Alex Gibney’s New HBO Documentary, Explores a Legend

[marylander1940]

Few people have led a more examined life than Frank Sinatra did, so a documentarian taking on the subject needs a distinctive approach. Alex Gibney (who also directed the recently-aired Scientology documentary “Going Clear”) finds at least a somewhat successful one for “Sinatra: All or Nothing at All,” which has its premiere Sunday and Monday nights on HBO. Still, there’s no disguising that the story is awfully familiar.

 

The two-part, four-hour film uses as a framework a 1971 performance in Los Angeles that Sinatra billed as a retirement concert — a misnomer, as it turned out, since there were many more concerts before his death in 1998. The film’s premise is that the songs he picked for that performance are both career-defining and self-defining. Footage from the concert becomes a gateway to archival material and commentary by Sinatra experts, family members and Sinatra himself, who is heard in excerpts from various interviews.

 

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/02/arts/television/review-sinatra-alex-gibneys-new-hbo-documentary-explores-a-legend.html?_r=0

 

I remember this song...

 

[BabyBoomer]

From the glory days of "The Rat Pack"..

 

~ Boomer ~

[Boink]

Looking forward to this. I hope they address Mia Farrow's claim that Sinatra is the real father of her son, Ronan Farrow. I totally believe it!

 

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02833/ronanfarrow_2833413b.jpg

[Bearofdistinction]

Looks more like Sinatra than Frank Jr --- But can he Sing?

[+ sniper]

wow I don't think I'd seen a picture of young sinatra in color. That really makes it look like Ronan is his and not Woody's...