The Father and His Son
How do you make a documentary about a man who doesn’t have the slightest interest in talking about himself? Well, in the case of Sr., the Netflix documentary directed by Chris Smith (streaming tomorrow), since the subject is the underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr., you make a movie about a man making a movie. Which is just one of the stories in this enveloping pastiche of a filmmaker and his son, Robert Downey Jr.—maybe you’ve heard of him?
Sr. is about a radical filmmaker who, for a generation, was part of any unsentimental cultural education that included Hubert Selby Jr., Melvin Van Peebles, and Penny Arcade, on through Jello Biafra. It’s both an appreciation of Sr.’s body of work and a document of him in action. It’s about work and how it defines us. The film covers illness, too—Sr., who died in 2020, suffered from Parkinson’s. Sr. grapples with fathers and sons and the distance between them, as well as addiction and its consequences. It’s about what’s said and left unsaid, and, oh yeah, it’s also a beautiful, clear-eyed meditation on death.
Did we mention Sr. is also funny? Which makes the whole thing sing. Downey Sr., a true dees and dose mid-century New Yorker, forever quick with a remark and a mischievous look in his eye, was the kind of guy alive to the spontaneity of the moment. His movies are fabulously weird, full-on laugh riots, and Smith does a wonderful job of curating tasty cuts for us. This documentary is a great Sr. primer, enough to get you excited to see his masterpieces, Putney Swope (1971) and Greaser’s Palace (1972), both of which are streaming for free on Tubi.
Smith, director of 2017’s Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, has long shown a keen sensitivity and interest in people and how they interact with the world, and Sr. is an ideal character for him. Downey Jr., who is at turns charismatic, self-conscious, well-intentioned and tender, extends gobs of generosity his father’s way. He doesn’t let him off the hook—they discuss how Sr.’s addiction impacted Jr.—but gives him the last word. (The final scene in the documentary is from Greaser’s Palace.) Early in the movie, when you see a still photograph of father and son, Sr. physically so much bigger than Jr., you feel how much Jr. reveres his old man.
In an intimate, frank discussion, Downey Jr. and Smith talk about how Sr. turned into art both unexpected and complete—and something that would make Sr. roll his eyes.
ESQUIRE: I appreciate you making this movie. My father, who has been dead for almost 16 years, was a year younger than your dad and grew up a few neighborhoods away in NYC.
ROBERT DOWNEY JR.: There’s a whole generation of humans, in this case we’ll talk about the guys, those east coast guys, the generation they came out of, the generation they inherited, and all of the stuff they were navigating while still contributing to a kind of charisma gap. [Laughs]... I’m not surprised that you would relate, because I automatically got a sense of Wow, I wonder what Alex’s pop was like... I started vibing on the way he might sound, what his specifics were.
Chris, in the documentary, Robert says about his dad, “I love him for what he did. I love him for what he didn’t do.” And I feel the same way about your movie in certain ways. I love what it is—and it’s more than one thing—but also what it is not: the traditional, addiction confessional.
CHRIS SMITH: I know Robert had thoughts on that. I feel that you try and follow and be true to the subject matter you’re documenting, right? If you spend time with Robert Downey, Sr. or Jr., you realize that both of them are looking to do what’s not obvious. Always. And that was one of the big learnings from spending time with Sr.—and it’s affected my life going forward—is everything is always an opportunity to do what is not expected. Without trying to make the movie unnecessarily challenging, we were trying to make it thoughtful and different.
Robert, wouldn’t you say in some way, even though the movie is an homage to your father’s work, it’s a contemplation of death, it’s about fathers and sons, it’s about families … uh. Apologies, I’m losing my train of thought here for a second.
[Pause]
RDJ: I’m glad. Wait, wait, wait: Let’s enjoy this moment.
[Downey and Smith laugh]
That’s what it is though! This movie is an homage to your dad’s process, which is exactly that. There’s scenes in the movie, like when a group of motorcycles drive past in Far Rockaway, and he’s like, ‘Yes, did you get that?’ The psychotherapist Esther Perel defines erotic as something not sexual, necessarily, but being open, curious, and alive to life itself. That seems to be what your dad was about.
RDJ: By the way, that’s a hallmark of not just of creatives, but what humans have to do to survive and adapt—which is openness to new experience. Now, is it a “new” experience? It’s not like he didn’t see a skateboarder go down the street before. It’s that humans are hardwired to go, “Wow.” Because if we didn’t, I think things would be even more tragic.
CS: I think you realize that it was what we’d hoped for in terms of trying to create something—that while it has two larger-than-life personalities—felt very universal in connecting with everybody’s experience. I think everyone had either a direct relationship with this story or one degree of separation. Life is filled with these sorts of challenges.
Rosemary, Sr.’s wife, says that the Parkinson’s took something from him every day, but the movie gave him something to look forward to. To live for. You are so generous to your father in this movie in many ways. How much of that animated your work on Sr.—that you were enabling your father to have a project to work on?
RDJ: It’s that Yang element of leaving something you hope is a legacy, whether it’s entertainment, film, or not. That need to make a mark, to influence a generation. Whatever generosity occurred I realized pretty soon, I was doing to save my own ass because I needed to process this. I’m still processing this. I’m processing things that have nothing to do with Sr. about my own life now because of the Sr. movie—and what it means to me now that I’m in the position he was in when I was blah, blah, blah.
I remember being out near Rockaway or Fire Island with him and there was a pretty strong undertow. He was talking to one of his buddies and they were smoking Lark cigarettes, or whatever. We were in about knee-high water, and I kept holding on to his knee as I felt the undertow was going to pull me out to sea. I looked up and he didn’t notice because he was big and tall and strong, and his legs weren’t going anywhere. But I was literally holding on to him to not be pulled out by a riptide. All of us with a parent—mother, father, uncle, significant person in our lives—have this moment where we felt like just touching them would keep us from being pulled into this scary, unknown realm called Everything Happens in Life.
At the end of the movie, you guys really spend a lot of time with Sr. when he's near the end of his life. He’s a little incoherent. And you stay with him. You are just sitting in the room with him. It’s almost the equivalent of you holding onto his leg.
RDJ: Yeah, or maybe at that point maybe there’s a little bit of reversal.
That’s what I meant, the opposite—
RDJ: Yeah, yeah, he’s holding on to my leg. Dude, it’s so funny. That to me, that’s exactly what we’re talking about. I haven’t thought about that for twenty years. You closed the circle. And again, Chris, there’s something about a certain style of filmmaking which is yes, you have to hold the space of the observer, but what you’re doing is hosting a forum to let the elements interplay and work themselves out. Smith, yeah, there was [an element of] control involved, but there a very elevated sense of you just trying to hold this fucking three-ring circus together before the tent collapsed on it.
Chris, I don’t know if Sr. was the same off camera as he was on camera—
[Downey and Smith laugh.]
CS: No, what you see is what you get. Every time we were packing up or setting up it was the worst thing because there was always this gold happening. There’s always some great line and you’re sitting there like, “Argh!” [We missed it.] I still feel so lucky that we were pointed in this direction and started the project when we did, because I feel like we just caught that little sliver of Sr. in his element that I hope people can get a sense of what he was like. The window was closing. I don’t think we realized that in the beginning, but it closed pretty quickly. I feel so lucky that we captured it and weren't trying to show Sr. looking back. We were with him in the moment.
What did you learn about yourself over the three years of making Sr.?
RDJ: First of all, I gave myself permission to say honestly, this is kind of an act of cowardice. Initially. Because I’m going to control this whole thing. Very objective. I’m going to do an homage to my father. Doesn’t that put me in a positive light? And knowing that he was in the winter of his life, that every day he woke up he was obsessed with, [imitates Sr.], “When are we shootin’ again?”... And all of a sudden it turned into this weird thing where I was like, This is going to be a disaster. This isn’t fair to him. This isn’t right to me. Why did I think this was going to be a good idea?
What part of you thought it was going to be a disaster? You thought it was self-indulgent?
RDJ: You know what it really was? It became his raison d'être. And by the way, that was just one element. It was just in the recipe there. It was a just a little Bonita flake of, “You dumb fuckers, look what you’ve set up.”
You mean you had a sense of grandiosity about yourself that you were responsible for your dad’s wellbeing by having this project?
RDJ: Grandiosity aside, he latched onto this and it was his obsession. Kind of like the carrot and the stick, except now, what was the ethical thing to do?
Chris, what would have been the unethical thing to do?
CS: Look, early on, Sr. wrote these notes down and said, “I really think the Parkinson’s should be part of the story.” Anyone who knows Sr. knows he wants to show everything. It wasn’t like showing one part of anything. It’s all part of the journey, part of the story. That was the thing I took away. He wanted to make sure everything was represented. Ethically, that felt like the right decision. Had the signaling been different we might have had a different movie.
That’s right. But he was a wart-and-all kind of guy.
RDJ: One of the warts was this: Whatever it was that we were trying to corral—which is what people will now see on screen in theaters and on Netflix—is not the project that Sr. was making. So, was it a bait-and-switch? Was it a necessary evil? I think it was both. Thank God it landed on its feet. There’s a little bit of God’s grace in here. And I think that was what was the transcendent element was here.
Chris, you guys are able to show a discordant, weird sensibility of Sr.’s movies. I mean, the clips you show from his movies are incredible. They’re hilarious.
CS: That was one of the joys of going back through the material, was rediscovering these moments. Robert was instrumental in helping make sure we didn’t miss some of the highlights. I remember Robert pointing out the arrow scene from Greaser’s Palace [featuring Downey’s mother, Elsie], and I was like, Oh my god, how could we not have had that in the cut?
RDJ: That’s a funny bit and it’s a sight gag. But to me it was their relationship, as it came down to them making movies together. Our marriage is falling apart, we’re in this counterculture meltdown, and all of a sudden, this lack of narrative for how you should even live in the world as a husband, wife, mother, father—let alone artist—is all going to hell in a hand basket, so let’s just keep shooting and do it again.
Robert, you credit your mom with teaching you so much about acting. What was it like not only watching your mom work, but watching her act for your father and what she was willing to do for him? How much she trusted him to keep pushing herself?
RDJ: It was a foundation for the extremely sober and monastic version that is mine and [Downey Jr.'s wife] Susan’s relationship nowadays. That it is better to work together than to have a lot of separateness. For me. For us. And I was kind of able to do a corrective experience in real time with it. And Susan is nothing like my mother except for the fact that my mom was a very, very loving, a little bit how you’re hearing about Spielberg’s mom in The Fabelmans. A lot of that archetypal maternal gush. And now... I’m so happy because it’s my turn to lose my train of thought. My god, we’ve come full circle!
You touch on your addiction and your father’s addiction, but it’s not something that is dwelled on in the movie. How did you get to the point where you forgave him enough to make this movie about him? Or did you never have to forgive him?
RDJ: Depending on the day, it’s a process, but I will tell you this. When we started out, I said, “I’m not sure there’s a redemption in here. And I’m certainly not going to lay it out for him to float away on a magic carpet. I can’t do that with a clear conscience.” But I remembered along the way that this was as much a redemption story as a father-son [story.] And it was always there. And during that part of the interview, I was reminded, Oh that’s right, he had this devastating, tragic loss of his second wife [Laura Ernst]. And it’s hard to show up. It’s hard to show up. I was not able to show up for him in the way he showed up for Laura Ernst. Now, it’s not an out. Because let’s see how he plays it. [Laughs] Here’s the mic, dude, let me see: make a compelling argument for your redemption. Let’s see about this. And the truth be told is: was that part of the story? Is it enough? I don’t know. I know that it plays in the theater.
And you have to be careful because you don’t want to force some things. You don’t want to be too pat, with anyone, but particularly with a guy like your dad.
RDJ: Oh my god. [Imitating Sr.] “Oh, here we go, here comes the waterworks, huh?” I’ll say this as closing. An injured child will forget key parts of the story that would give them the perspective they need, because you can’t see the other person’s point of view. You’re still in the damage. To me, it was clarifying. It was almost like an open court symposium where I was able to see that evidence laid down. Smith?
CS: Yeah. Throughout the entire process, Robert said, “Do not negate the fact that this was not an ideal situation.” And he would always come back to that point... We did a cut of the movie. It was pretty good. Everyone thought it was accurate to the experience and reflected the journey. It was never part of the discussion on Robert Downey Jr.’s side. Robert Downey Sr. never cared about the documentary. He never asked to see it. I think he really thought it was irrelevant and that it will be forgotten to history.
[Downey Jr. laughs.]
You love that, right? You love that.
CS: He was making his movie and that’s all he cared about.
The scenes with your son, Exton, and you visiting Sr. were very powerful. There is also a scene of you two on the floor of your hotel room unpacking your suitcases and placing your clothes in the chest drawer. I don’t know what it’s like to live out of hotels but I thought, Here’s a man who travels a lot and maybe he needs to unpack almost immediately to feel settled. And he’s sharing this moment with his son. Never mind bringing him to see your dad. I found it very moving. This is the man you’ve become for your kid.
RDJ: No one has pointed out that moment before. I appreciate it. We play House. Because we joined the circus long ago. Exton said, “Yeah, you can film me or not, I just want to go and see grandpa. I think I need to do this.” It was organic. I wasn’t there when he talked to the camera. There are certain things that you are going to have to do alone and one of them is tell the camera where you’re coming from. It was this amazing moment of a much healthier, sustainable version of what I had. The great triumph of the whole project is the next generation’s opportunity to get the upside without the dark.
I love what Susan says near the end. “I don’t know if Sr. has come to terms with his behavior from back then or how it relates to Robert, but what I know now is this is someone who loves his kids.”
RDJ: That to me, that was the chip. Without that chip from her, just for me, as a man and as her partner, that was a very gracious get.
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