Last year, Alec Baldwin and director James Toback hit the Croisette, not to premiere a movie, but to try and raise financing for one. They brought along some cameras to help document the effort for what would ultimately become the documentary, “Seduced And Abandoned,” an insider’s inside look at the fickle game of film financing and the movie biz in general. Now they’re back a year later in Cannes with the finished product, set to unveil in a special screening next weekend, but what is this whole thing all about?
Acquired today by HBO who nabbed the U.S. television rights, the project is described as “a cinematic exploration of several interconnected subjects: The Cannes Film Festival and cinema art, money, glamor and death” which seems pretty vague, but last year, Baldwin put it out there that he was trying to raise money to make a “psychosexual political thriller” called “Last Tango In Tikrit.” It seems this (very fake) project opened the doors to allow Baldwin and Toback take meetings and have conversations with all kinds of folks including Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola, Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese, Ryan Gosling, Jessica Chastain, Berenice Bejo, Diane Kruger and James Caan.
Showbiz 411 digs a bit deeper revealing that the movie shows Baldwin and Toback trying to get $25 million for their movie, which would reportedly star Baldwin and Neve Campbell as lovers, in a story set in Iraq. Neither is seen as particularly bankable (which isn’t so shocking) and then Baldwin switches tactics, saying that Jessica Chastain will co-star with him. “Seduced And Abandoned” sees Baldwin and Toback meeting with various financiers and industry people, all to paint a picture of the absurd world of movie-making. But here’s the thing — will it tell us anything we don’t already know?
Either way, it’s star-studded and sure to be entertaining as hell for those who like this inside baseball kind of thing. Check out some more pics from the doc below.
