Flasz On Film

You’ll be hard pressed to find a persona in showbusiness with a life story as varied, preposterously implausible and equally inspirational as Arnold Schwarzenegger. They guy was born in the middle of nowhere in Austria in the midst of the post-war malaise, overcame a multitude of adversities and climbed to the top of the world. And then he did it again. And again. Now that he’s in his Lebendsabend, the time is right for a documentary like Arnold to come round and take stock of who could easily be remembered as one of the last great movie stars.

As Lesley Chilcott’s three-part documentary immediately indicates, Schwarzenegger’s life has been much more varied and wide-ranging to be confined into a term as simple as “movie star”. In fact, his persona is so much larger than life that he clearly deserves his life story to be told in three parts, which is what Chilcott did. In fact, this also clearly illustrates one particularly crucial aspect of Schwarzenegger’s life that most assuredly contributed to his stunning success in life. He has always advocated staying hungry, going after your dreams and never resting on your laurels.

He illustrates this in the film itself by talking about Sir Edmund Hillary, the man who famously became the first to climb Mount Everest. In Arnold’s words, after making it all the way to the top of the world, Hillary allegedly took stock of the view from Mount Everest – a view nobody had experienced before him – and he immediately realized he was not done with his journey. He noticed a peak in the distance that he had not known was there before and decided he needed to climb it next. Because both for Hillary and Schwarzenegger, it was never about achievement itself, but about committing yourself to the process of achieving. Remember Heat? For some people, the action is the juice. It’s not about money or kudos. These are just byproducts. Some people can’t stay idle and also – when they decide to do anything – they won’t settle for anything less than excellence. They know that what’s worth doing is worth overdoing and they practice this philosophy every day.

Chilcott’s documentary uses this perspective as a filter through which to look at Schwarzenegger’s career, or rather three distinct careers, all of which started with a dream, got catalyzed by the fact nobody believed he’d be able to pull it off and then got reduced to practice because Arnold just doesn’t take no for an answer. He looked up to Reg Park and decided he’d not only repeat his success by becoming Mr. Universe, but also that he’d eclipse his achievements. Which is what he did. All throughout the film, Chilcott comes back to Schwarzenegger, whom she spent countless hours interviewing, only to hear him give the exact same reasoning for why certain things worked out in his life the way they did.

It’s all about reps. Time under tension. And if anyone ever thought Arnold wouldn’t be able to do anything, he’d bite down and work even harder. He’s well known for saying that you always have time to work on yourself. There’s twenty-four hours in a day and you only need to sleep for six hours out of the twenty-four. Which leaves you with eighteen to spare. So you can work, apply yourself, take care of your body, learn and do all it takes to bend the world to your will and shape your reality as you see fit. And you can’t really dispute his claims. Arnold did it. In fact, he did it three times.

His father would tell him he needs to get a job and be useful and that his dreams of stardom in America were fanciful. ‘Hold my Schnitzel and watch’, said Arnold. Not only did he succeed, he became the most decorated bodybuilder in the history of the sport and one who continues to be regarded as the greatest of all time, because his life story took bodybuilding out of obscurity into the mainstream of popular culture. When he set his sights on acting – like Hillary finding a new peak to climb in the distance – people told him he was crazy because he had a thick accent and a name nobody would ever pronounce. Again. ‘Hold my protein shake and watch this’, Arnold concluded. And he became the biggest movie star of his time and the definitive action man. And when he decided it was time for him to give back, especially as he saw his adopted home state of California being run into the ground, he thought he wanted to become the state governor, which everyone in his orbit advised against. After all, he didn’t know how to campaign, how to govern and where to even start. He was not a politician. Once more. ‘Hold my cigar’, he said to these gloomsters and naysayers and he became a public figure, thus concluding there is nothing stopping you from making your dreams come true. If you commit to the process, stay hungry and work your ass off, you will always come out on top.

Arnold takes stock of all his achievements in a perfectly digestible and entertaining fashion. In addition, it does not shy away from touching on more controversial aspects of Schwarzenegger’s life, like the historic groping allegations, the fate of his marriage with Maria Shriver, or his affair. In fact, I think Schwarzenegger responds to these tough questions in such a great way that it can only serve to increase your respect of him as a human being because he doesn’t attempt to sugarcoat, derail or sidestep anything he could see as difficult to answer or damaging to his brand. He knows he is a fallible human being, and he trusts the filmmakers would reciprocate his honesty by showing the truth as it is without sensationalist bias. Which is what they did.

As a result, Arnold paints Schwarzenegger as a flawed superhuman whose stature not only does not suffer from his shortcomings but is effectively bolstered by the way he owns his mistakes. In consequence, this three-part docuseries becomes the definitive look at an extraordinary life of an extraordinary person. Granted, for those like Yours Truly who have followed Schwarzenegger’s career for decades and looked up to him as a role model of success and hard work, there may be very little in the way of new facts; however, it is a great repository of trivia and factoids you’d probably remember from his many interviews and talk show performances, all gathered in one convenient location.

Where I think this documentary triumphs is in the opportunity it will give you to spend time with this guy, which is more than enough to see how inspirational his presence can be to a mere mortal like you and me. You sit down with him, look at his cigar, his grey stubble and a physique that for his age continues to be immense and impressive, and you come away energized. That’s because hanging out with Arnold Schwarzenegger is the closest you’ll ever come to interacting with a real-life superhero. This is a guy who has an actual superpower. He dreams a dream and he wills it to existence. And he can also convince you that you can do this, too.