Seduced and Abandoned
Filmmaker James Toback and actor Alec Baldwin travel to the Cannes Film Festival to secure financing for a movie. Taking part in several pitch sessions with producers as well as interviews with directors and actors, the duo explore the film production aspect of film financing.
26 March 1940, The Bronx, New York, USA
22 April 1933, Chicago, Illinois, USA
16 March 1941, Parma, Emilia-Romagna, Italy
24 March 1977, Sacramento, California, USA
18 August 1933, Paris, France
15 July 1976, Algermissen, Lower Saxony, Germany
21 December 1950, New York City, New York, USA
3 April 1958, Massapequa, Long Island, New York, USA
3 October 1973, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
12 November 1980, London, Ontario, Canada
May 13, 2014
The film is at its very best when Baldwin informally cross-examines respected names such as Martin Scorsese, Roman Polanski, Bernardo Bertolucci, James Caan and Jessica Chastain.May 12, 2014
Their [Toback and Baldwin] film about the idea of the film is entertaining and diverting, even if there is also something slightly melancholy about this artificial pursuit of a cinematic phantasm.October 28, 2013
Ironically, the failure of the financing mission gives [it] a sharper edge. But in the end, that edge will probably be of more interest to Baldwin, Toback and the film biz than to a civilian, who mostly wants to know why she can't find a decent rom-com.May 08, 2014
An amusing and, at times, genuinely revealing doco - albeit one with distinctively niche appeal, and cloaked in an air of unmistakable self-satisfaction.October 25, 2013
This one seems to effortlessly breathe on its own as a buddy/buddy "road picture" with scenic pathways, a few dead ends and refreshing breezes throughout.October 28, 2013
A fun, larky travel essay and commentary on the film biz, an exquisite wallow in the most rarefied sort of first-world problems.October 24, 2013
The fact that it is so funny eventually becomes strangely sad, which makes the film thoroughly enjoyable but also irresistibly provocative.October 28, 2013
Toback's directorial intuition proves to be spot-on: their self-revealing brave face on humiliation and despair is deeply cinematic.May 12, 2014
Seduced and Abandoned is, if nothing else, a film buff's delight.May 03, 2014
As a film trade journalist in the 80s and 90s I covered the Cannes film festival 20 times, and seduced and abandoned is how I always felt...It's like three different docos slapped together, none of them complete and coherent - or satisfyingNovember 05, 2013
Baldwin and Toback make a snappy comic duo, and half of their talks with a line-up of luminaries focus on the art of filmmaking rather than the business.May 10, 2014
It's funny stuff, yet the real nuggets here are when [Alec] Baldwin defaults to standard doco-mode and asks an impressive range of people...about the harsh realities of working in the world's most expensive entertainment artform.