The “Bright Lights” documentary featuring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds which airs on January 7 on HBO was supposed to be a tribute more to the life of the “Singin’ in the Rain” actress.
But after the mother-and-daughter actresses died after Christmas one day apart from each other, it has become apparent that the documentary film is actually for the two of them and some critics are saying that it becomes a fitting send off to both Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.
In fact, the official title of the documentary when it comes out to HBO is “Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds.”
According to filmmakers Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens, they began filming the mother and daughter duo in April 2014. From a mere documentary, it evolved into something different from what they have initially envisioned it to be.
Focusing on the relationship of Carrie and Debbie
In a recent interview, Alexis Bloom said that the documentary started with Carrie Fisher sort of wanting to pay tribute to the fact that her mother was still putting on the gold lame and walking onto the stage despite her age.
It can be recalled that Debbie Reynolds who shot to stardom with MGM’s “Singin’ in the Rain” in the 60s was still performing during the 80s, reports the Vanity Fair.
Bloom added that Carrie was certainly frustrated with her mother about it because she was worried for her health, but she also admired her enormously. It was apparently the springboard for the documentary.
For his part, Fisher Stevens said that when they started making the film, the “Star Wars” actress gave him and Alexis a list of people to interview and speak about her mother.
Stevens also confirmed that the film was originally meant to be a more traditional documentary, featuring people talking about Debbie and Carrie amidst archival footage.
But months into what turned out to be a year and a half of filming, the directors realized that Debbie, Carrie and their unique relationship deserved more of a close-up.
Fisher Stevens also stated that they fell in love with the two women as they got deeper and deeper in their story and they realized that they were making a love story.
Living next to each other
The documentary also captured the mother-and-daughter duo living next door to each other on a Beverly Hills compound.
Carrie Fisher’s house was a zanily decorated counterpoint to her mother’s traditional home. She is shown making her ailing mother meals, helping her pack for ill-advised cross-country trips, and preparing her to accept a lifetime achievement honor.
Home movies and screen footage of Fisher and Reynolds are interspersed with interviews, during which mother and daughter speak frankly about the complexity of their relationship, their love for one another, and the family’s many battles, with manic depression and drugs for Fisher, tabloid scandals, and broken marriages for Reynolds.
Although the two were markedly different as Reynolds is an impeccably MGM-groomed starlet, and Fisher, a bawdy and brutally honest wit who described her demons in memoirs, their shared experiences bonded them in a way deeper than any romantic relationship either ever had.
Once Stevens and Bloom had accumulated enough footage on their own dime, they spliced together a trailer and took it to HBO, which had previously partnered with Fisher on her “Wishful Drinking” special.
HBO not only agreed to back the project but provided the filmmakers with behind-the-scenes footage that was taken for “Wishful Drinking” but never actually used, including one touching segment that shows Fisher visiting her father, Eddie Fisher, in Berkeley, California, during his final years.
The documentary does not tell any sort of linear story. It bounces through time and space, shifting focus every few minutes. At times, the filmmakers seem to be producing a historical family doc, building a timeline out of home videos and old newsreel footage.