Legacy of love
The length of “The Last Movie Stars” gave Hawke plenty of space to go deep into the lives of Newman and Woodward. There's a bounty of glorious clips from films good — Woodward's Oscar-winning role in “The Three Faces of Eve” — to those less so: “The Towering Inferno,” anyone?
There's also space to explore the harder chapters in a marriage that lasted 50 years — Newman's drinking, Woodward's disappointment in setting aside her career to care for her children, the loss of their son Scott to drugs.
It's clear, though, by the end of the series that their love for each other was always strong enough to weather the rough times, Hawke says.
“It was wonderful to discover how passionate they were for each other,” Hawke says of the unexpected pathways down which his research led the story. “I mean, these people were lovers. You think of husbands and wives often, and it's just like, oh, they're married.
“But these people were loved for a long time, and that was kind of delightful,” he says. “Reading his transcripts, they loved to be with each other and kiss each other and touch each other, and they longed for each other when they were apart.
“There's a great old interview that didn't make the final cut where he's with Larry King, and Paul's old,” Hawke says. “He's old, and Larry King says, `Well, it's nice to hear that a sexual relationship can sustain.' And Paul goes, `Let's hope!'
“That part was charming,” Hawke says, laughing.
Near the end of the film, Hawke visited the couple's longtime Connecticut home and filmed inside the renovated barn where Newman and Woodward screened movies, hosted parties and displayed all the many awards they'd received in their careers.
“I left there profoundly depressed because all these things that I'd coveted or thought would give life meaning are just sitting there collecting dust,” he says. “But then I had this realization that those awards weren't for us, or they weren't for now. They were for them in that moment, for them and them only.
“And then I had this realization that the biggest legacy they have is the way they lived their life, and the impact that can have on all of us,” Hawke says. “I was kind of like, that's what the movie should feel like when it's over.”