Roger Ebert gave "Crumb" four stars, so we rented it. According to his review, the filmmaker, Terry Zwigoff, has known Robert Crumb for many years, and was as depressed and suicidal during the making of the film as Robert Crumb has been at times in his life.
Robert Crumb is a true, tortured eccentric, who found salvation in his art; the fact that he also found fame is almost secondary. By contrast, his brothers, Charles and Max, are basket cases. They were the children of an active monster (their father) and a passive, colluding monster (their mother). There were two sisters, who declined to participate in this film. As Mad Magazine was of the Fifties, so Zap Comics and Robert Crumb's cartoons and artwork were subversive, anarchic emblems of the psychedelic Sixties, although as the film abundantly details, he himself was never really of that world.
After half an hour of this film, we were saying, "Wow, how fascinating!" After an hour, we were saying, "Okay, I've seen enough of Charles and Max." After an hour and a half, we were pleading, "Have mercy!" By the end of this two-hour film, we were feeling as if we'd been tortured by burial under heavy rocks. We came to the end with great relief.
I instinctively understand Robert Crumb, but two hours of Crumb's profound cynicism, his indefatigable negativity, his misanthropy and misogyny, his interminable kvetching---not to mention the ramblings of his brothers and various friends, former lovers and associates---is about an hour too long. A skillful editor could take this material and cut it down to a one-hour special for cable that would be a masterpiece. As it is, it drags on and on and on and on and on and on. Too much of anything, even Robert Crumb, is too much.
Robert Crumb is a true, tortured eccentric, who found salvation in his art; the fact that he also found fame is almost secondary. By contrast, his brothers, Charles and Max, are basket cases. They were the children of an active monster (their father) and a passive, colluding monster (their mother). There were two sisters, who declined to participate in this film. As Mad Magazine was of the Fifties, so Zap Comics and Robert Crumb's cartoons and artwork were subversive, anarchic emblems of the psychedelic Sixties, although as the film abundantly details, he himself was never really of that world.
After half an hour of this film, we were saying, "Wow, how fascinating!" After an hour, we were saying, "Okay, I've seen enough of Charles and Max." After an hour and a half, we were pleading, "Have mercy!" By the end of this two-hour film, we were feeling as if we'd been tortured by burial under heavy rocks. We came to the end with great relief.
I instinctively understand Robert Crumb, but two hours of Crumb's profound cynicism, his indefatigable negativity, his misanthropy and misogyny, his interminable kvetching---not to mention the ramblings of his brothers and various friends, former lovers and associates---is about an hour too long. A skillful editor could take this material and cut it down to a one-hour special for cable that would be a masterpiece. As it is, it drags on and on and on and on and on and on. Too much of anything, even Robert Crumb, is too much.