Whatever Jane Fonda thinks – and opinions are many – the actress / activist has lived a fascinating life.

This becomes even clearer in HBO's "Jane Fonda in Five Acts" (Monday 8 EDT / PDT), a documentary by Susan Lacy ("Spielberg") that illuminates the Oscar's two-time life of her relationship difficult with his film. father hero, to his reinvention on and off camera to his current independence and – finally – self-acceptance.

"I have spent a lot of time feeling if I am not perfect, no one can love me." says Fonda, now 80 years old, at the end of a two-hour film that includes archival recordings and more recent interviews for the film with Fonda, her son Troy Garity, Robert Redford, and Dick Cavett. many others. "So, I realized we have to embrace and accept our shadows, sometimes good enough."

You already know the famous father (Henry), marriages with accomplished and controlling men (the filmmaker Roger Vadim, political activist Tom Hayden and media mogul Ted Turner) and the much vaunted film career ("Barefoot in the Park "," Klute ") 9 to 5"), but "Five Acts" – four bear the name of his father and three husbands and the last for her – also includes lesser known and sometimes more revealing details.

Five of "Five Acts":

• "I grew up in the shadow of a national monument:" For a woman so accomplished and frank, Fonda talks about being attracted by powerful men who have molded and controlled her. The most profound influence was a "national monument", as she calls her father, a man whose cold and disapproving nature was at odds with his public image.

"He was a hero for so many people, but this kind of men are not always good fathers," says Fonda.

• Location, location, location: The film was perhaps the family affair, but a young Fonda did not intend to be an actress. When the 20-something without direction lived at her father's house in Malibu, California, she went down the beach and knocked on the door of legendary theater professor Lee Strasberg.

His life changed when Strasberg told the woman who doubted herself that she had talent. "It was as if someone had opened the top of the head and the birds had flown away," she said.

• Anti-war activism sincere, with deep regret: Fonda is often identified with his progressive political activism, expressed in the most memorable way in his opposition to the Vietnam War. Fonda's visit to northern Vietnam provoked a violent reaction that persists today: she was nicknamed "Hanoi Jane" and a traitor. But Hayden admitted he helped stop the bombardment of dikes that would have resulted in floods and hundreds of thousands of deaths.

"I'm naive and I make mistakes," says Fondain the movie. On the famous photo that showed her sitting on a North Vietnamese antiaircraft gun, she said, "It was a betrayal, I will go to my grave regretting it."

• Find your voice: After little talk in the early films, often small romantic comedies, Fonda experienced a career change experience in 1969, "They Shoot Horses, Do not They?", A look at desperate marathon dancers during the Depression. "It was the first time I was doing a movie about something," she says.

It was also the first time that a director (Sydney Pollack) was asking for his opinion. "I've always had the impression that it was a serious actress buried in this glamorous cat," he says.

Over the years, Fonda has explored serious cultural and political issues in her films: the challenges facing military veterans in 1978, "Coming Home"; the dangers of nuclear energy in 1979 "The China Syndrome"; discriminatory treatment of women in the workplace in the 1980s "9 to 5"

• novel emotion: Towards the end of his father's life, Fonda briefly broke his armored emotional wall, using his own acting rigor against him. In 1981, "On Golden Pond", in which Henry and Jane play father and daughter, cheats the great actor, famous for his recurrent preparation, by sneaking spontaneously, simply by touching his arm. He raised his hand to cover his face. "I saw tears in his eyes," says Fonda. "And that meant the world to me."

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