Being Darth Vader: “I Am Your Father” peers behind Prowse’s mask

With the October 2016 announcement that he would no longer attend international shows to meet fans and sign autographs in person, David Prowse closed a chapter of his life that some “Star Wars” aficionados had anticipated since a 2009 cancer diagnosis and a controversial 2014 claim that the Darth Vader portrayer had been suffering from dementia.

Prowse, whose sour grapes and willingness to communicate with the press have run afoul of Lucasfilm gatekeepers on multiple occasions over the years, is the subject of Marcos Cabota and Toni Bestard’s documentary “I Am Your Father,” an uneven victory lap for the now 81-year-old performer.

Opening with the sight of inaugural cinematic Frankenstein monster thespian Charles Ogle and ending with a roll call of “men behind the mask” that includes Ben Chapman, Lon Chaney, and Max Schreck, “I Am Your Father” alternates between biographical portraiture fleshed out with plenty of excellent archival imagery and a much less satisfying thread in which self-described Vader superfan Cabota holds court with Prowse, determined to restage the unmasking scene from “Return of the Jedi” – in which Vader was played by Sebastian Shaw – with or without the permission and blessing of Lucasfilm. Needless to say, the formal request is denied, and viewers of “I Am Your Father” don’t get to see the finished clip, presented instead with the dubious reward of watching an audience react to it at a private screening.

Despite the unnecessary runtime padding via Cabota’s appearance, the filmmakers construct one plausible argument aiming to exonerate Prowse for any real and imagined damage he did to Darth Vader and the “Star Wars” brand in the eyes of Lucas and company. In a 1978 interview, Prowse, with uncanny powers of prognostication, accurately predicted that Vader would turn out to be the father of Luke Skywalker in the yet to be made “Star Wars” sequel. Later leaks, attributed to Prowse but likely sold by others, surrounded various plot points in “Jedi.” While Cabota and Bestard build a strong case defending Prowse, the nature of their film largely ignores other bones of contention, or for that matter, any real critique of Prowse.

Is David Prowse Darth Vader? Yes, but so is James Earl Jones, who in an interview clip magnanimously suggests his voice acting was merely a “special effect.” Bodybuilder Prowse, despite having appeared in Hammer horror films and “A Clockwork Orange,” will be principally remembered for wearing Vader’s cape and helmet, even if we never saw his face or heard his voice. Prowse’s work as the Green Cross Man, a road safety superhero he played in a series of public service announcements for Britain’s Green Cross Code campaign starting in 1975, is cited by the actor as his most personally satisfying career achievement, and the filmmakers craft a rewarding section on the spots and Prowse’s related visits with elementary schoolchildren.

Like many “Star Wars” fan films, “I Am Your Father” exposes the raw nerve between sanctioned content controlled by the copyright holder and the sense of personal ownership held by those for whom the saga is an almost all-consuming passion. Inevitably, Cabota and Bestard end up at sci-fi/fantasy conventions to get hot takes from cosplayers and pilgrims whose responses are at times as illuminating as the ones offered by Gary Kurtz and Robert Watts. In one sense, it is precisely because Prowse has been prohibited from participating in any official “Star Wars” events that he, like the community members described by Will Brooker, “raise(s) the specter of Lucasfilm as a tyrannical Empire, stamping out rogue interpretations where it fails to assimilate them, and by extension constructing the fan creators as a rebel alliance.”

[I Am Your Father” is currently available on Netflix instant watch.]