Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes

2024

1h 40m

Documentary

Biography

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97%

Tomatometer

30 Reviews

80%

Popcornmeter

Fewer than 50 Ratings

ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES offers an unprecedented exploration into the life of Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's quintessential star. With extraordinary access to Taylor's personal archives and 40 hours of newly unearthed, intimate audio interviews with journalist Richard Meryman, audiences are invited to rediscover, not just a mega star of Hollywood's Golden Age, but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood. These candid conversations peel back the layers of one of cinema's most enduring icons, revealing a woman at odds with her public image, yearning for respect and agency. The film follows the life of an actress who defied the era's expectations by portraying strong-willed women on-screen, offering a nuanced portrait of the intersection of vulnerability and strength.

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Lucy Mangan

Guardian

Even for the amateur fan like me, the film remains a heady treat. Because it is about Elizabeth Taylor. They don’t make them like they used to -- and they probably never will again.

Rated: 3/5

Aug 12, 2024

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Anita Singh

Daily Telegraph (UK)

The tapes do lend an intimacy.

Aug 12, 2024

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Richard Brody

New Yorker

The Lost Tapes lays bare the gap between private self and public image.

Aug 9, 2024

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Susan Granger

SSG Syndicate

Nanette Burstein's biopic is enlightening and insightful...

Rated: 6/10

Aug 30, 2024

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Manuel Betancourt

FilmWeek (KPCC - NPR Los Angeles)

There's great insight, a lot of great footage, and if you're a Taylor fan then this will be catnip... But I wish they had stopped by the 1960s and not tried to be as exhaustive.

Aug 28, 2024

Full Review

Jane Freebury

Jane Freebury

An intriguiing insight into the life of a massive star that reveals her many dimensions, and her concerns that her stunning looks got in the way of being considered a serious actor

Rated: 4/5

Aug 26, 2024

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Megan e

Fascinating documentary! They did a great job of placing images, film clips, and other contemporary interviews in the midst of the lost interviews. Brilliant! 5 stars

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

08/29/24

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Alan W

This iconic actresses documentary double feature begins with Nanette Burstein's fluffy documentary constructed around newly discovered tapes Richard Meryman made in 1964 with Elizabeth Taylor (with brief appearance from GBF, Roddy McDowall, though criminally, barely any Richard Burton) in preparation for his ghost-writing her autobiography. Matching up the sometimes frank audio interviews to a delightfully assembled sequence of archive footage and film clips, it's a conventional and chronological run-through of her cinematic career up to this point, charting her rise from child actor to young starlet in lesser known studio pictures she's contracted to make, to her more famous works like Giant, the Oscar-winning Butterfield 8 (which I didn't know she loathed), and of course Cleopatra. Likewise, it does the same for the numerous marriages and scandals which haunted her, in which domestic abuse, tragic accidents and adultery played a part in their various dissolutions and explain why her public life is constantly being splashed all over the newspapers and other media. To hear Taylor commenting freely in an unfiltered manner on some of these matters, or firmly shutting down others she doesn't feel like discussing, is fascinating and illuminating for the curious fans, but this is a limited and strictly confined documentary with views that were expressed 60 years ago which only serves to demonstrate Taylor's mindset at that particular time in her life. Without the benefit of hindsight or any counterpoints, it lacks any real introspection or reflection that can only come with the passage of time, whilst anything post-Virginia Wolff is relegated to an epilogue montage.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

08/26/24

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Aldis H

The tapes were not f****** lost, that's just advertising double speak. They just haven't been shown, for good reason.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

08/08/24

Full Review

jim p

So amazing. She was a beauty that loved, lost, and lived. We’ll never have a star like her again.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

08/04/24

Full Review

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Nanette Burstein

Director

Elizabeth Taylor

Self

J.J. Abrams

Producer

Sean M. Stuart

Producer

Nanette Burstein

Executive Producer

Barbara Berkowitz

Executive Producer

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Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes: Trailer 1

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Synopsis

ELIZABETH TAYLOR: THE LOST TAPES offers an unprecedented exploration into the life of Elizabeth Taylor, Hollywood's quintessential star. With extraordinary access to Taylor's personal archives and 40 hours of newly unearthed, intimate audio interviews with journalist Richard Meryman, audiences are invited to rediscover, not just a mega star of Hollywood's Golden Age, but a complex woman who navigated lifelong fame, personal identity, and public scrutiny on a global stage from early childhood. These candid conversations peel back the layers of one of cinema's most enduring icons, revealing a woman at odds with her public image, yearning for respect and agency. The film follows the life of an actress who defied the era's expectations by portraying strong-willed women on-screen, offering a nuanced portrait of the intersection of vulnerability and strength.

Director: Nanette Burstein
Producer: J.J. Abrams, Sean M. Stuart, Glen Zipper, Bill Gerber, Rachel Rusch Rich
Distributor: Max
Production Co: HBO Documentary Films, Zipper Bros Films, Gerber Pictures, Sutter Road Picture Company, Bad Robot
Genre: Documentary, Biography
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 3, 2024
Runtime: 1h 40m

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