Paris Hilton: I Kind of Prefer Wiseman's Verite Work

By Steven Zeitchik

The mind dances at what kind of footage can be seen so newly shameful to Paris Hilton, the enfant teribles whose entire reputation is based on shamelesness, that she and her reps don't want you to see it. She's a teetotaler? Has the alcohol tolerance of an eighty-year-old? Goes to Les Deux only three times a week?

But shameful, or at least deeply unhappy and litigious, is exactly how Hilton reps feel about "Paris, Not France," Adria Petty's documentary about the uber-party girl. So unhappy, in fact, that sources say lawsuits have been threatened, and the film, set for a Toronto Film Festival debut, will likely be seen once there and nowhere else afterward.

Petty, a music-video director who's also the daughter of Tom, shot the movie as a short to collect on a DVD of Hilton music videos, but found so much material she turned into a full-fledged feature -- one that, as the official TIFF description tells, "explores the businesswoman and the human being behind the public persona" and "attempts to explore the Paris phenomenon and how it defines this moment in culture."

We get that Hilton may be trying to change her image. But even Hilton in an unflattering light helps Brand Hilton, doesn't it? And if it doesn't, could it really be worse than anything Hilton undertakes herself? (Did reps see the Larry King interview?) "They apparently don't see it that way," one source said wryly.

And so the movie, while putatively handled by William Morris (who reps Petty) isn't actually being sold at the festival; costs from the legal wrangling simply wouldn't be worth the financial upside for a buyer. Which means that like Soderbergh's Che at Cannes, you may never get a chance to see it this way again.

And which we guess means that the new, more serious Paris may soon be leading a South American revolution.

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