Featuring: Heidi Fleiss, Ivan Nagy, Madame Alex, Victoria Sellers, Daryl Gates, Nick Broomfield, and
others
Director: Nick Broomfield
Producer: Nick Broomfield
Cinematography: Paul Kloss
Music: David Bergeaud
U.S. Distributor: International Pictures
It doesn't take a genius or an expert in sociology to understand why the Heidi Fleiss scandal captured so many headlines. It had everything the public craves: sex, violence, power, and the potential to incriminate the rich and famous (although, admittedly, Charlie Sheen's career hasn't suffered as a result of his alleged connections to Fleiss). The story of the "Hollywood Madam" kept Hard Copy and other, similar shows going for months. Now, after the furor has died down, after the much-publicized nude pictures of Fleiss have appeared in a mens' magazine, and after her pandering conviction has been overturned, Nick Broomfield's muck-raking documentary, Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam, is slowly making its way across the U.S. art house circuit.
Broomfield offers everything that tabloid TV gave us, and more. Not only do we get interviews with Fleiss, her girls, her friends, her mother, her ex-lover, and her enemies, but we are presented with stuff that could never make it to television: a home video of Heidi cavorting naked while trading barbed insults with Ivan Nagy (who shot the tape), graphic descriptions of what it meant to work for Heidi, and a profane tirade by Madame Alex, the woman whom Heidi deposed.
To be fair, there is a point to all this beyond appealing to our prurient instincts. Broomfield is attempting to show the destruction of innocence -- how an apparently happy, well-adjusted teenager from a prosperous background could be sucked into the high risk, high profile role of Hollywood's most infamous pimp. And, while it's debatable whether the director successfully defends his thesis, one area where this film is effective is in illustrating just how soulless Hollywood is. While none of the revelations uncovered during the filming of Heidi Fleiss are likely to shock the more jaded and cynical viewer, they will confirm some of our darker suspicions about Tinseltown. Drugs and sex, the cornerstones of Heidi's $5 million-per-year empire, are just symptoms of a deeper corruption.
All sorts of fascinating, salacious tidbits come to light during the course of this film. One callgirl remarks that most of her clients weren't interested in sex. Instead, "they hired [girls] to sit and watch them do drugs." Another defends the claim that blondes really do have more fun. In a telling snippet, Daryl Gates agrees to answer Broomfield's questions, but only after being paid a sizable cash fee. There's also a description of what exactly one gets for a $40,000 sex fantasy.
Broomfield starts his film by talking to a number of people on the periphery of the Fleiss scandal -- callgirls, adult film stars, and other assorted nobodies. Finally, after getting the background information out of the way, he finds three people who offer the most compelling interviews: TV director Ivan Nagy, who was Heidi's lover as well as one of the people who turned her into the police; the infamous Madame Alex, who ruled Hollywood's bordellos for twenty years before Heidi's ascension; and Victoria Sellers, the daughter of Peter Sellers, who was once Heidi's best friend. The centerpiece of the film, however, is Broomfield's interview of Heidi, which takes up most of the last half-hour. And, although she presents a guileless facade, and occasionally looks like a deer paralyzed by headlights, one instinctively disbelieves most of what she says.
If you like stories with unreliable narrators, Heidi Fleiss will be a source of delight. You can't trust anyone, no matter how straightforward or honest they appear to be. Ivan says one thing. Madame Alex says another. Heidi contradicts both of them. No one is credible. After all that has happened, are Heidi and Ivan still together, continuing their twisted, co-dependent relationship (as he asserts), or have they split up (as she claims)? Who's lying and who's telling the truth? For that matter, is anyone telling the truth? Do any of these people even know what truth is?
Even the director's motives are suspect -- we don't know how much his personal bias has affected the manner in which he constructed this film. He certainly doesn't ask Heidi many hard-hitting questions, and, when all is said and done, seems content not to have uncovered any real facts (unless there's truth hidden in the maze of lies). A brilliant new film called Dadetown makes the point of how easy it is to blur the lines of fact and fiction in documentaries. Heidi Fleiss may be a perfect example. In many ways, this movie is more interesting as a study of the documentary form than as a look at one woman's tragic fall from grace.
Although Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam has the power to intrigue, it is rarely of more than passing interest. We are perversely drawn to the material, and Broomfield has capably assembled it to hold our attention. Heidi Fleiss is like a jigsaw puzzle with about half of the pieces missing, and, in a strange way, this incompleteness is part of its attraction. Generally, we expect answers from a documentary; this one just gives us more questions. About the only conclusions we're likely to reach are that Hollywood is a landfill for souls, and that the genuine Heidi Fleiss, whether victim, manipulator, or a combination of both, will never be revealed to the public.
© 1996 James Berardinelli