“Roadrunner” is perhaps even a good term to define who Anthony Bourdain was, the chef turned writer who turned presenter and then became a global celebrity — and one of the most influential voices in modern cuisine.
Before committing suicide in 2018, Bourdain traveled the world so many times he could circumscribe the planet nearly 30 times, according to an American television program.
There were about 250 of the 365 days of the year away from home, as the chef himself, main character of “Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain” (with speculated premiere in Brazil, but without title or date set), directed by Oscar winner Morgan Neville.
The documentary, which hit American movie theaters and some streaming platforms in July this year, three years after his untimely death, provides an accurate x-ray of the moment when the cook became (not only) a television megastar.
And, above all, the implications that a life spent on camera around the world has inflicted on him.
“Bourdain was always running to the next place, even if he didn’t always have anywhere to go,” sums up one of the producers who worked with the chef for years.
He frequented dubious restaurant tables, killed animals with his bare hands, and ate things that few would have the courage to taste (like the freshly plucked heart of a snake) in places as disparate as Borneo, Jerusalem or Accra.
Like few others, he blended an adventurous, braggart spirit with the shrewd eye of a fluid cultural commentator who had a wealth of cooking and books—he was a voracious reader.
And he especially enjoyed listening to “real people” who gave him the sense of reality from which his fame gradually distanced him.
That was the formula of his fame: a little colloquiality, a bit of erudition and a lot of charisma — plus a slight misunderstanding of his place in the world, which is what the film tries to show, seeking the shades of gray of his life to understand why, perhaps, he chose to abbreviate it so early, at 61, in a luxury hotel in France.
“Bordering”
Bourdain was a comet: blazing, intense, merciless. Having him in your restaurant could mean more than earning three stars from the acclaimed Michelin Guide if the idea were to put you in the diners’ spotlight.
Establishments shown in his programs were instantly transformed into strongholds with queues and queues after his passage, an effect that many came to call “Bourdenization”, when places visited by him later became “unfrequented” by locals such as the tourist flow.
The table at which he sat with former US President Barack Obama in Vietnam to eat a plate of noodles, in 2016, for example, was covered by a glass frame and became a major attraction in the small town of Ngô Thì Nhậm . More for him than for Obama, some say.
But with the weight of international fame came an erratic life “from country to country, from city to city, from airport to airport”, as he recounts in one of the scenes. This modus operandi helped to define his somewhat dark personality that the film tries to reveal, interviewing a dozen people from his immediate social circle, such as chefs and friends, producers and family.
To the interviews — which he characterized for the New Yorker magazine as “the most difficult I’ve ever done” —, Neville also merges program archives and other footage that has never been made public.
Fame
Bourdain even became famous when, in the 1990s, he published the book “Cozinha Confidencial”, in which he narrates the backstage of restaurants in a kind of essay on the stray personality of the professionals who frequent them: an intricate profile of the underworld of cookware.
The work arose from an article he wrote for the prestigious The New Yorker, which catapulted him to success.
“That’s why chefs are all drunks,” he says, in one of the rare scenes of him dressed in his dolman outside his old restaurant, Les Halles, in the 1990s. “We don’t understand why the world doesn’t work. as well as our kitchens.”
Outside of it, Bourdain’s world was never perfect, as the testimonials of friends show, ranging from addictions to chronic social and existential dissatisfaction. He had an uneasy look at the ills of the world, which he tried to show in his programs.
“You have to see reality with your eyes wide open,” he tells a group of Vietnamese in a conversation about the war that has killed millions in the Asian country.
But perhaps the film’s most controversial passage is at the end, when his longtime friend, artist David Choe, tells of an email Bourdain sent him: “My life is kind of shitty right now. successful, I am successful, but I keep thinking: are you happy?”.
More than the content, however, what caught the attention of the press and film producers was the fact that the last words of the text are read in Bourdain’s voice.
Morgan Neville confessed that he used parts of Bourdain’s narration taken from TV, radio, podcasts and audiobooks to create an artificial intelligence that was able to posthumously reproduce his voice.
The documentary maker also claims to have used the feature in two other parts of the film, in a total of 45 seconds in which Bourdain’s voice is dubbed by digital technology — but only on top of texts written by Bourdain himself. Neville justified the appeal saying it would give more power to the story he wanted to tell on screen.
People linked to the presenter protested. Journalist Nathan Thornburgh, who worked on some scripts for the chef, tweeted: “Tony was VERY SPECIFIC with what he said into the microphone and how he said it. idea”.
The hashtag, by the way, became a trending topic when the American media raised the subject, in a wide-ranging questioning about the deep fake in documentaries—and much criticism from the presenter’s fans. Curious is that the episode makes you think about the authenticity of the voice of a character who changed the gastronomic scene with what he was saying in front (and sometimes behind) the camera.
A producer interviewed at the beginning of the film says that he “was very aware of his own ability to promote other people’s voices” and that, imbued with that responsibility, he always liked to write his own scripts and lines.
“I better write in my voice, otherwise it’ll sound more like a television presenter than a writer,” he even told her.
In his own voice, Bourdain chronicled the world in angry, elegant, amusing, and often overwhelmingly emotional chronicles of the world he saw primarily from its dealings with food. Indirectly, he also exposed his life to millions of viewers around the world, intrigued by what he had to say. It is a personality that the film tries, with some success, to unravel.
In the very first few minutes of “Roadrunner”, Bourdain gives a poignant spoiler of what is to come: “You’ll probably find that out anyway, so here’s a pre-symptomatic truth. There’s no happy ending.”
In this case, it is the presenter himself — and not his robotic version — who is speaking.
“Roadrunner: A Film about Anthony Bourdain”. 2021, USA. Directed by: Morgan Neville. No date to debut in Brazil. Excerpts available on YouTube and HiMovies.to website.
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I am currently a news writer for News Bulletin247 where I mostly cover sports news. I have always been interested in writing and it is something I am very passionate about. In my spare time, I enjoy reading and spending time with my family and friends.
