The film superimposes multiple thematic spheres and presentation formats: fictional narratives and historical facts; individual life paths and socio-political reflections; moments from American history and its pop cultural detritus – as well as acute questions about democracy. Henry Fonda is the pilot of this endeavour. His life and the life of his ancestors, the actual person and the persona that crystallises from his works, the places and times where and when the person and the persona were active – these threads are condensed into a view of America. And they directed us to the locations where we filmed in 2019 and 2021. Their concrete shape and their own momentum led to further investigations: new side roads, new satellite characters, new connections and speculations. Thanks to his family history, his personal conflicts, weaknesses and beliefs, his films and his special talent as an actor, Fonda also acts a bit like a zoom lens, capturing the most varied dimensions of history and life in America via different focal lengths. It can give you just the outlines – or very precise details. And thanks to Fonda’s voice, which reaches us through Lawrence Grobel’s long interview with him in the summer of 1981, he is also the second “narrator” of the film. In reality, he was a taciturn person. He didn’t see himself as an artist and didn’t like to talk about himself. But he managed to bear witness – even if he himself didn’t perceive it that way. Hannah Arendt talks about this at the beginning of my film, and I took the liberty of reading it as a statement about Henry Fonda: “The subject discloses an objective work to the public. What is subjective about this, the working process for instance, is of no concern to the public. However, if this work is not merely academic, but rather the result of a life lived and suffered, then it will also reveal a living action and speech, the bearer of which is the person himself. What appears here is unknown to the one who presents it. He has no command over it.”

Alexander Horwath