Lana Wilson always knew Brooke Shields was very beautiful and famous, but prior to making “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields,” a deeply honest and affectionate portrayal of Shields’ life story, she didn’t really consider that much more about the American cultural icon. “I first vaguely remember encountering her though her sitcom work in the ‘90s,” recalls Wilson, also the filmmaker of the Taylor Swift documentary, “Miss Americana.” “And I had a vague sense of something that had to do with her postpartum [depression]. That was really all.”
But that changed when the “Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields” executive producers George Stephanopoulos and Ali Wentworth presented her with the idea for the documentary. “I was the only person they met with, so either it was their idea, or someone suggested me to them. And when I met Brooke, she watched all of my films,” remembers Wilson. “Including my second film, which is entirely in Japanese and about death. And she had watched that twice, which meant a lot to me.” And it’s no surprise that Shields had devoured Wilson’s movies—throughout “Pretty Baby,” it becomes clear how much of a cinephile Shields is. “She loves art of all kinds. She’s a total cinephile,” says Wilson. “And she has really sophisticated, interesting reactions. And she told me at the first meeting, ‘I see you. I really want an artist like you to take my life. Tell a story of it through your perspective.’ That’s just a gift to hear that from any subject. I could have creative control, the final cut.”
Here’s how the journey evolved for Lana Wilson from there on out.
I read that Brooke gave you a hard drive of all her archives when you met.
And I later learned it was the only copy, which is a bit terrifying in retrospect. She said, “This is stuff that my mom collected for over 40 years. Every photograph, every TV appearance.” It was over a thousand pieces of footage and photos, and it included footage from a never completed documentary that [her mother] Teri had commissioned called “Look At Brooke.”
[I was] looking for something that is not just a celebrity problem. And the moment that made me decide, “Yeah, I’m going to do this movie,” was when I saw Brooke at age 12 on the press tour for Louis Malle’s “Pretty Baby.” All of these talk show hosts praising her beauty, her face, her body, how sensual she was, how mature she is, but then also saying, “Aren’t you concerned that this is too sexual, that you’re going too far?” and criticizing her for participating in what some people saw as exploitation or even child pornography. And I was struck by that dynamic of a girl having to navigate this impossible double standard publicly. And I thought that’s a situation a lot of girls are still in, often privately. So I thought it would be incredible to tell Brooke’s story through the lens of 2023 and ask, “Has anything changed?”
I am wondering when you two discussed the sexual assault she reveals in the doc.
At the first meeting. She was like, “I haven’t talked about this before. Do you think it should be in the documentary?” And I said, “I don’t know. Talk about it, and then I should bring it into the edit and see. I think it should be in the documentary only if it’s an integral part of the story that this film is telling.” Ultimately, I did feel like it was an important part because the fundamental story of the film is about Brooke’s evolution and going from being an object to being a human being; the story of her gradually gaining agency over her own life. And I saw the sexual assault as the ultimate violation of her autonomy. But I told her, “I want to make sure every word of this sequence is something you’re comfortable with.” And she was. That was important to me.
That must have taken a great level of trust that you built with her.
Once you’ve made a few films, part of the trust comes from the subject watching your films. And [rest] of it is from spending time together in person. I’d spend a lot of time at the beginning of the days with, “Brooke, just share everything in your mind. Don’t worry about the order.”
I think Brooke had two fears. One was that she hoped that this would be deep and get many different layers about her into it. Her whole life, she’s been so often reduced to one thing or one stereotype. So that gave me the idea of interweaving Brooke’s personal story with this bigger cultural story: Brooke Shields, the commodity, was holding a mirror up to American society’s ideas about women and girls. I saw a culture that wanted Brooke to shut up and remain an object while she insisted on doing otherwise.
Another fear she had was about vilifying her mother. It’s the understandable fear of an adult child of an alcoholic. I told her, “I think your mother’s really complicated. And your relationship with her is the most important relationship in your life. And I promise you that this will be really complicated. I’m not going to shy away from what was so hard for you.” When I looked back at all of the archival material, I did feel like Teri had become a scapegoat for the sexualization of Brooke when actually, it’s the entire culture that was then (and still is) largely made by men that was responsible. Sure, Teri was the ultimate decision-maker, but she wasn’t the person coming up with the ideas for these movies and ads.
Watching your documentary, it felt like Brooke was perhaps processing some of the things she was saying in real time or reconsidering them under different light for the first time.
Absolutely, I had the same sense. And that’s what felt so special about the interview. She said it was a cathartic experience for her. Part of that is my interview style. There will be moments when I’m pursuing something, but a lot of the time; it was surprising to Brooke that I was not saying anything. She’s done probably a million interviews over the course of her life, but it’s usually people who are not really listening to her. They’re cutting her off a lot of the time. So she was a bit flummoxed. Often, I’ll just let things sit in an uncomfortable silence because then Brooke will have another thought. It was this way of peeling back the layers of the onion.
Do you see a through-line in your filmography? Looking at “After Tiller,” your Taylor Swift doc “Miss Americana,” and others, it feels like you’re keen on removing the stigma around your subjects, asking people to reconsider uncomfortable truths.
At the risk of sounding pretentious, I’m just interested in the human condition, in following people on a quest for meaning and understanding. And I do think that a lot of the characters I filmed, they are on a real quest for identity. I’m always looking for those bigger revelations inside one person’s life experience. I do remember someone pointed out to me after my first two films that what Dr. Tiller, who was assassinated, says at the beginning of “After Tiller”—”I’d rather live a short life that has meaning than a long life that doesn’t”—is almost the same thing that the Zen Priest Ittetsu Nemoto says in “The Departure.” And Brooke absolutely fits into that, this quest to discover her identity and purpose in the world.
I love the scene towards the end where you filmed Brooke’s family life. There is a loving kind of friction between her and her daughters. I would love to hear about that day of filming.
I love your phrase, loving friction. That’s totally what it was. I always knew that I didn’t want to see Brooke’s daughters until the very end of the film. I thought, “We’re going on this kind of epic journey through Brooke and her relationship with her mom and then through postpartum depression. How rewarding will it be to just visually see her daughters at the end?” I had edited most of the film and was doing a day or two of just “A day in the life of contemporary Brooke” for the ending. Maybe a visual moment with her daughters. And right as they were sitting down to dinner, I just asked her daughters, “Have you guys seen any of your mom’s early films?” And that was the spark that lit off. It just took off. This 90-minute conversation ensued.
Most of my other films are present tense, verité in style. And I never feel like I’m an invisible fly on the wall. But there are these moments where you do feel like you melt into the wall, and also your presence there is imbuing meaning into a situation. I think that’s what was happening. I remember the DP, and I looked at each other and thought that was something really special and rare. I was struck by how smart her daughters are as the voice of their generation. I was also so struck by, having lived until that point inside the archival world and Brooke’s relationship with her mom, how different that dynamic [with her own daughters] was. You see Brooke’s deep desire to learn and grow. She always wants to challenge herself. It was really inspiring and the greatest testament to Brooke as a person.