Roadrunner: When Love and Dreams Aren’t Enough to Keep You Alive

Our rating for Roadrunner: ✰✰✰✰✰

“While Neville’s exploration of the demons in Bourdain’s life provides a more rounded figure of the man, humanising him to this documentary audience and proving that he was more than just a figurehead of a successful badass chef, one also walks away from the documentary with a sense that Neville refuses to excuse those parts of Bourdain that were priggish, insensitive, and thoughtless.”

There is something incessantly terrifying about being an artist. First, one must recognise they are an artist and define what that means for themselves. Then, they must prove themselves an artist to those around them. Eventually, at some point, maybe, for a very select few, they will be chosen. It will be decided by whatever random hand that they are important, that they are worth being heard and listened to, and that their voice should have an impact on the world.

Morgan Neville’s Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain seeks to uncover the secret and quiet interior world of a man who was an artist. As Neville pours over interviews from Bourdain’s friends, one of his ex-wives, and colleagues, what is immediately clear is that although no one fully understood Bourdain, and although at times he hurt those closest to him, that he was deeply loved and respected by everyone who was interviewed in this piece.

While this film shows the positivity in Anthony Bourdain’s life, that he tried his best to help others and be a good father and husband, it also does not shy away from showing his failings: his failed marriages and romantic relationships, his meanness, and his manic states.

While Neville makes an argument through his storytelling and editing that Bourdain’s voice being heard through his books, television shows, and interviews was a positive overall in making, specifically, American and Western audiences aware of the world around them, showing them that developing nations could be defined by more than famine, poverty, and war shown to them on cable news, he also touches on the ways Bourdain could not avoid the darker realities of the countries he visited.

In this way, Neville draws a parallel to Bourdain’s own troubled life and relationships, showing that although he tried to be good and focus on those beautiful parts of his life, he could never escape the darker thoughts that would continue to haunt him until his final moments.

While Neville’s exploration of the demons in Bourdain’s life provides a more rounded figure of the man, humanising him to this documentary audience and proving that he was more than just a figurehead of a successful badass chef, one also walks away from the documentary with a sense that Neville refuses to excuse those parts of Bourdain that were priggish, insensitive, and thoughtless. Although Bourdain was a genius, Neville argues, genius is no excuse to hurt yourself for your art and your audience and no excuse to hurt those closest to you.

There is no way to sum up one man’s hopes, dreams, fears, and pain, and this film shows how everyone who Bourdain touched grapples with describing him how he truly was and how he truly felt and saw the world. It aches one’s heart to see all of these people in their interviews attempt to decipher those final moments and events leading up to Bourdain’s suicide and, ultimately, fail, leaving one to wonder if anyone, including himself, truly knew him.

As voice, narration, and storytelling are so integral in Neville’s documentary, just as it was throughout Bourdain’s life, it is unsurprising to see that other reviewers have latched onto this idea of how one’s story is told after it came to light that Neville and his team used AI technology to Frankenstein together Bourdain’s voice so that he could read selected emails and text messages he sent (The controversy over Anthony Bourdain’s deepfaked voice is a reminder that documentaries aren’t journalism). Although opening a discussion about intent, truth, authority, and consent ironically touches on themes discussed in Roadrunner, having these themes overshadowed by discussions of technology and Morgan Neville’s use of it and dishonesty in his filmmaking process, I believe, diminishes the legacy of Bourdain that is presented in such a loving and multifaceted manner. While I find Neville’s actions to be questionable both morally and in terms of filmmaking, I also understand why he did what he did even though I may not condone the ways by which he went about threading together his narrative.

In Neville being so dedicated to his craft that he lost sight of ethical concerns and the feelings of others, Roadrunner takes on a fascinating life beyond the screen, where boundaries between the subject and the documentarian are muddied and, as in the case of Neville, the documentarian begins to mirror the less than desirable personality traits of his subject. In doing so, the documentary becomes more real than it could have ever hoped to be, with the audience unable to escape the fact that, at its core, a documentary is a story told by someone who is so obsessed, so moved by a subject, that they are forced to tell it to others. These types of people are usually unable to remain entirely subjective and their work is a product of a manic kind of love that cannot be held to the same standards as a journalistic piece. Documentaries, especially when made about certain individuals, will always have a bias and they will always be messy; if they are not, they are left insincere and hollow.

Every artist hopes to one day reach the social and cultural relevance of an Anthony Bourdain; to one day become inescapably important. As I listened to the sniffles that surrounded me in the theatre as the film came to a close, chronicling Bourdain’s final days, I thought I, too, would cry, but I did not. As I left the theatre, I found myself to not be sad, but to be seen, something that is more haunting than tears. In many ways I, and I am sure many of us, hope to be Anthony Bourdain in many ways, but in many other ways pray to whomever that we do not meet the same end.

Bibliography

Hornaday, Ann. “Perspective | The Controversy over Anthony Bourdain’s Deepfaked Voice Is a Reminder That Documentaries Aren’t Journalism.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 19 July 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/anthony-bourdain-roadrunner-deepfake-documentaries/2021/07/19/9b582702-e7c7-11eb-97a0-a09d10181e36_story.html.

Neville, Morgan, director. Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain. 2021.

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