Lenny
It’s funny how Martin Scorsese’s Raging Bull (which came out in 1980) has had such a phenomenal run through the years when it comes to being remembered as a classic for the ages. A expansive biographical picture of someone who was an extremely unlikable type who nonetheless was a major sports celebrity in the world of boxing, with his onscreen fights being used as a metaphor for his hellacious personal life and maybe most of all, Scorsese’s use of monochrome black and white photography all contributing to its legendary, enduring legacy to this day. Despite all its awards and acclaim, it should be noted that there were a LOT of very highly praised in their time, Oscar nominated, award winning films over the years that weren’t quite so lucky as to have an immediate place at the table in terms of AFI and other best of, all time classics lists, being considered great at the time of release but barely mentioned today when people talk about great writing, acting or drama. A major example is this release from 1974 that just like Raging Bull six years later was a biographical film about an extremely controversial subject who was considered to be a groundbreaking figure in his particular art form, showed extensive scenes of said subject in performance to help serve as a metaphor for that person’s own troubled life and (wait for it) actually chose to use monochrome black and white photography to portray said person’s life long before Scorsese made the artistic decision to do the same. That subject was Lenny Bruce, the crazed stand up comic who long before Redd Foxx, Richard Pryor, Sam Kinison, Andrew Dice Clay and so many others to come since then was credited as being the first comedian to work “blue”, otherwise known as openly using profanity on stage as part of his act in order to make people laugh. Bruce was privately said to not be a very nice guy, engaging in drug use (including heroin), multiple sexual relationships (despite having a beautiful stripper wife) and just a nasty mean streak in general, not being afraid to cuss out anyone if he got pissed off enough. He also happened to be a brilliant social commentator whose recordings of his onstage work continue to be circulated to this day and whose name is still held in the highest esteem by anyone in the field of comedy. He also in his day found himself banned from nearly every major comedy club in the country, rarely if ever made appearances on live television and usually found himself relegated to performing in low end venues that nonetheless were willing pay him ample amounts of money because they knew that having his name on the bill along with the spreading of word of mouth would always guarantee a big crowd and lots of money, not to mention the possibility that various forms of law enforcement would be present and might even arrest him on stage for the violation of obscenity laws, a trait he almost sort of shared with rock idols like Jim Morrison. Directed by Bob Fosse (coming off an Oscar win for Best Director for Cabaret where he had beaten Francis Ford Coppola for The Godfather) in a sort of twisted homage to Citizen Kane where his unseen filmmaker (we only hear Fosse’s voice) interviews several characters documentary style about their memories of Lenny and his patented brand of insanity. The almost fluid editing pattern intercuts these testimonial interviews with extensive footage of Bruce onstage along with the meat and potatoes of the actual dramatic scenes themselves. The role of Lenny Bruce was first offered to Al Pacino (who turned it down in what he later said was the only regret of his career) and finally given to Dustin Hoffman who clearly took the ball and ran with it to pick himself up another Best Actor Oscar Nomination, spending at least 25% of his screentime being shown onstage ranting, doing his standup and working the crowd and it’s fascinating to see what material of Bruce’s is almost considered tame and acceptable today (sex and various relationship problems with women) and what remains shocking still even now (his wide ranging use of racial epithets up to and including the “N” word which no white comic could pull off today) all in his quest to point out that words are just words and should never be allowed to cut someone as deeply as a gun or a knife could, all while saying that no longer repressing the use of these words or various other subjects will make it easier for society to not be shocked anymore by mere words and thus enable us to deal more openly with certain issues when they arise in the hopes of solving them (a goal for which he admittedly accomplished). As fine as Hoffman is in the role, for at least the first half of the film he finds himself competing with an equally powerhouse performance in the form of Valerie Perrine (whose Best Actress Oscar Nomination here allowed her to remain a star for the rest of the 1970s up to and including her signature role as Miss Teschmacher in the Richard Donner Superman films) as Bruce’s wife Honey, a popular stripper whom he becomes infatuated with during his initial runs as an (unfunny and unpopular) “clean” stand up comic doing bad impressions and even worse jokes. Perrine proves herself to be unafraid of doing nudity but more importantly, the tortured soul she plays here proves to be every bit as interesting as Hoffman’s Lenny, in essence willingly going down the same dark path that he does and even having a child with him before a drug bust lands her in prison for two years and basically takes Perrine out of the movie so that Hoffman can take over the second half of the film and go all out in showing us a guy in total mental and physical decline who still commands record salaries from club owners who probably can’t afford to pay it while sometimes just going out there in a bath robe and burping out a few obscenities before going backstage and getting arrested again. Certainly there are a few scenes here that don’t work so well, such as when Bruce’s agent is on the phone negotiating with a club owner (with Bruce sitting there in the room listening in on the call) and Lenny is literally telling his own agent what to say (including how much money he wants) while the agent laughs and the owner on the other line is clearly getting exasperated, a scenario that while possibly having happened with Bruce in real life is something that no legitimate agent would ever allow to happen if they want to keep their own name in good standing, plus it comes across as being a forced, actual “funny” scene in what is still supposed to be a dramatic movie. Of greater interest is an encounter early in Lenny’s career with whom we are told is a “very famous comic” (the character is called Sherman Hart in the movie but was said in real life to have been none other than Milton Berle who was still alive at the time of filming and thus forced the name change in order to avoid a lawsuit) who tells Lenny that he loves his act and makes all sorts of grand promises to him about putting him on his TV show but that first he has to stop talking with such a filthy mouth before he himself is seen at a public event making a sly racist joke of his own, then handing the microphone over to Lenny who proceeds to burn his bridges with him by still making a tasteless remark anyway before being told by Berle / Hart that his career is over. Many other moments are born out of bits like that, but the overriding impression of Bruce (as well as the feelings of his underground fanbase at the time) was that he was the first guy to get up there on a microphone in front of people and speak the plain, hard truth as difficult as it was for many at the time to either hear it or want to accept it, keeping in mind that Bruce himself never really had a set in stone “act” so to speak, preferring to get up there on any given night of the week and just totally riff and ablib completely, saying whatever the hell it was that was on his mind at that particular moment, not to mention being arrested numerous times to the point that he blew all his money on lawyers and even having to beg one of the judges at his various trials to just let him do his act in the courtroom so that everyone could see where he was coming from (with the judge saying no) while his wayward soon to be ex wife drifted into looney bins (although she was a consultant on this film) and Bruce himself would OD on heroin at age 40, making his eternal mark on the world in a story that was compellingly told here and given the benefit of two top of the line lead performances…
8/10