Crumb is the best portrait of an artist I have either seen or read. It places the artist completely in context without letting these contexts swamp the movie (I was so relieved that there was no crappy 60's Haight St. footage, no stories about Crumb's grandparents coming to America with photos of people at Ellis Island and other docu-cliches). The contexts are so well-handled that one walks out of the theater thinking about a lot of things:
What is art? Can art be destructive? Does satirical art merely reinforce what it satirizes?Can people ever recover from the traumas of the past? Has America become a soulless country that slowly eats away at its citizens?
The
film doesn't really dwell on any of this, as much as lets the questions
arise from trying to understand Crumb and his work. There are so many other
strengths that the film has; the best fiming ever done of cartoons and
comic books, a confident guiding to the punchline that doesn't rush over
the work's details; a virtual encyclopedia of one man's different types
of laughter-- bitter laughter, loving laughter, and, above all, the laughter
that Milan Kundera would love, the laughter that comes when there is no
other response to a situation, the laughter of someone who sees the world
and knows they can never escape from it.; the quiet observation of the
the three Crumb brothers, rebelling from their father's society, but each
taking on roles that are so iconic of rebellion in that society (madman,
artist, mystic), that it perhaps can be seen as an unconscious attempt
to please as much as it is a rejection; a study of a man and his art that
edifies but leaves an enigma at the core. For myself, Crumb puts forth
a notion of art that is radically different from anything I've been taught
about its value: art can save an artist, but not the rough purging and
catharsis (Crumb suggests that the obsessions that lead one to art
are so ingrained as to be almost genetic, and can never be removed). Art
can only save an artist to the extent that it can be of value to the world,
and bring the artist the power to protect him or herself from that world.
In a culture where art is valueless, the artist will perish, their works
seen as curiosities and physical proofs of mental illness. Robert Crumb
may the the last and luckiest of a disappearing breed; the artist who rejected
the world so artfully, it embraced and saved him.
All written material on these pages is © 1997 by Jeff Lester. With the exception of non-profit distribution, all other rights are reserved.