Nick Nolte: No Exit

Colour, HD CAM
USA, 2008, 74 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Official Selection - Out of Competition

Synopsis

Nick Nolte is known as an actor "with balls", as we discover in this unconventional profile by director Thomas Thurman, whose work focuses on noted personalities of American cinema, past and present. In the case of this charismatic actor known to the public at large primarily for his roles in the films Cape Fear and The Prince of Tides, the director intentionally avoids the conventional form of the biographical documentary, with its obligatory film excerpts and honorific odes from colleagues. Instead, Thurman gets the eccentric actor to do the asking himself to shed some small light on the true essence of his persona. Never one to get embarrassed, Nolte goes for the jugular, while the enfant terrible’s “star" alter ego gives unusually frank and no-frills answers. This original study is also intriguing for the no less candid opinions of Nolte’s colleagues and friends Ben Stiller, Jacqueline Bisset, Paul Mazursky, Rosanna Arquette and Barbara Hershey.

About the director

Thomas Thurman (b. 1962, Christiansburg, Kentucky, USA) has devoted himself to the direction and production of documentary films about American culture, music, literature and cinema for the last 15 years. His first independent film about the actor Warren Oates, Warren Oates: Across the Border (1992), won the award for Best Documentary at the FF in New Orleans. The film Movies of Color: Black Southern Cinema, about independent Afro-American film, was awarded an Emmy in 2001. The documentary about the celebrated director Sam Peckinpah, Sam Peckinpah´s West (2004), brought him an award from the Western Heritage Museum in 2004. His filmography includes: Harry Crews: Guilty as Charged (1993), Ben Johnson: Third Cowboy on the Right (1996), Immaculate Funk (2001), John Ford at War (2002) and Tod Browning: One of Us (2006). His most recent film is Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride: Hunter S. Thompson on Film (2006).