Review: BECOMING ICONIC: JONATHAN BAKER Wrestles With Filmmaking

So you want to make a movie? Welcome to the club.

Becoming Iconic: Jonathan Baker
Now streaming exclusively on Fandor.

Fledgling filmmaker Jonathan Baker opens up to a startling degree about the perils and pleasures of making his debut feature, Inconceivable (2017).

Before he made it, Baker secured interviews with a host of veteran filmmakers. Jodie Foster, Adrian Lyne, John Badham and Taylor Hackford all share their experiences in individual interviews. What's especially helpful is that they talk openly and candidly about their own first features, what they learned, and what they wished they had known beforehand.

The interviews form the spine of Baker's documentary, which covers his family background and his personal journey to becoming a filmmaker. Then it covers, in exhaustive detail, his trials and tribulations in making that all-important first feature.

Baker covers all the gory details, from making contact with Lionsgate to the script process to the pre-production planning to the production itself, which veers from a dream come true to an unholy nightmare and back again. The script was clearly strong enough to draw the likes of Nicolas Cage and Faye Dunaway, while Baker's strong-willed personality is familiar to anyone who has any familiarity at all with the film business.

Only the strong survive in the film world, and Baker is still around to tell his side of the story. We are still awaiting his next film.

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