Dory Previn: On My Way to Where, directed by Julia Greenberg and Dianna Dilworth, is exactly the kind of well-balanced documentary mixed of archival and modern interviews that successfully inducts you into a new world of music.
Dory Previn came to prominence in the 1950s being the lyricist for film composer André Previn, whom she married in 1959. Her most famous works in this time were for the Judy Garland in Pepe song “The Faraway Part of Town”, “A Second Chance” for Two for the Seesaw, and five songs for Valley of the Dolls.
André’s affair with 23-year-old star Mia Farrow led to his and Dory’s divorce, an event which triggered a psychiatric breakdown for Dory, her second in the 1960s. The documentary is frank about Dory’s mental health horrors, addressing the emotional abuse from her traumatised father (who suffered from depression and violent mood swings). Dory Previn’s journey with mental health is complex and the documentary makes a respectable attempt at addressing it honestly.
Interspersed throughout the movie are abstract animations of the voices Dory Previn heard in her life, named “Mama” “Max” and “the Lion” (whom she also thanked in her 1984 Emmy Award acceptance speech), and these allow such a depth of understanding of how this woman saw the world.
Dory Previn’s total openness to the truth of her personal struggles was expressed all over her acclaimed career as a singer-songwriter in the 1970s. This second wind put her in the same conversation as Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Janis Ian, and Carly Simon, and she continued to write and record courageous material never afraid to be brutally honest about sex, love, drugs, hatred, and joy.
Her music is highlighted to a wonderful degree in the film, as is her influence on musicians, artists, and those who knew her, alive to this day. Dory Previn: On My Way to Where is a fantastic and worthwhile documentary that reintroduces audiences to a life, a career, and a voice worth listening to and remembering.
Dory Previn: On My Way to Where screened as part of the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival. Wide cinema/streaming release is TBC.
For more information, find it here
