Anthony Bourdain film Roadrunner explores the celebrity chef and TV host’s life, addictions and tragic death
- Director Morgan Neville, who won an Academy Award for his 2013 documentary 20 Feet from Stardom, loved Bourdain for his ‘punk rock attitude about everything’
- At first a fun romp through Bourdain’s sudden rise to fame, the film takes a dark turn as friends and colleagues reflect on the months leading up to his death
There’s no happy ending, as the late Anthony Bourdain is heard saying in a new documentary about his life, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have fun along the way.
Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in New York on June 11, dives into the highs and lows of the chef turned TV host and world traveller who tragically took his life three years ago.
“Tony was one of the good guys,” says Morgan Neville, who directed Roadrunner. “He was fighting the good fight. He was trying to open people’s minds and showing the world to people and showing how, if you break bread with people, we all want the same thing.
“He was a real champion of things that I thought were important in the world of breaking down the hierarchies of food and culture and politics and championing the little guy,” the filmmaker adds.
Neville, who won an Academy Award for 20 Feet from Stardom, his 2013 documentary about backing vocalists, says it was also Bourdain’s “punk rock attitude about everything” that drew him to explore his life.