Crumb DVD: Review By Brian Gallagher

Every once in awhile, I come across a movie that is sort of a paradox for me. Normally, when I see a good movie, I'll naturally want to buy it and add it to my swelling DVD collection. But every now and then, I'll come across a flick that, while being good enough for me to consider owning, I just can't bring myself to want it in my collection. This quirky doc*mentary, Crumb, that launched the career of masterful director Terry Zwigoff, that is a pretty damn good movie... but it's just so damn weird that I doubt I could own it.

This doc*mentary is a look at the truly bizarre life of Robert Crumb, a comic book artist who created Zap Comix, Mr. Natural and Felix the Cat along with many other titles. If you've seen American Splendor, Crumb, who drew for Harvey Pekar's autobiographical comic book, is portrayed there by James Urbaniak. But while this flick does examine his work to some extent, it is more an examination of this unique and almost creepy man. What's ironic is that Crumb himself muses early in the flick that he's not a good choice for a movie subject, but as we delve through his life, guided spectacularly by Zwigoff's direction, it's certain he proves himself wrong. While we mostly learn about Crumb from Crumb, we also learn a lot about him by the few others in his life like his current wife, ex-wife, former bedfellows (including one who edits porn magazines) and, mostly, from his dysfunctional family: his older brother Charles who is heavily medicated and has lived at home his whole life, his brother Maxon, who seems only slightly less troubled than Charles and his mother. His sisters refused to be interviewed for the flick. We get tales of an abusive father that obviously took its toll on all of the children, and even though they discuss these incidents with such candor, there is no hiding the torment in their eyes.

The flick also shows Crumb's unique view on women. Dismissed by women as a teen, he lashes out at women in his work, but has such a unique way of drawing them in his books, discarding the Barbie doll-type of women and drawing women in a realisticly surreal way, that one woman in the flick says his work actually empowers women. We get a lot of these instances where parts of his work are both hailed and lambasted by different segments of the art world, and it's kind of cool to see both sides of the coin here. While the flick is probably half about his work, and half about himself, the best parts are when we see just Crumb being Crumb, this odd, scrawny man who would never sell out, even before selling out became popular.

It's easy to see how Zwigoff, a lifelong friend of Crumb, made a directing career out of this small indie doc. His direction here is simply flawless, using some wonderful camera work to show eons of subtleties that many would ignore, but add so much depth and perspective to the flick.

All we get here is some commentary from Zwigoff and, oddly enough, critic Roger Ebert, a bunch of trailers for Sony Pictures Classics flicks and an "exclusive" scene from Zwigoff's new flick, Art School Confidential. I thought these special editions were supposed to have, you know, special features...

The flick is presented in the fullscreen format in the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, although I'm not really sure why.

The sound is done in the Dolby Digital 5.1 format.

The packaging is pretty simple. They have a huge title card, above which lists that this flick was "presented" by David Lynch, a trademark that Quentin Tarantino has done numerous times in recent years where he just endorses a flick without being involved in it. Below the title card we have a very large picture of Crumb and a shining critic quote from the late Gene Siskel, Ebert's former cohort. On the back, we have the "Special Features" box, which is a bit unnecessary, a quote from Ebert, some pictures of Crumb and another of a random woman, along with a brief synopsis followed by the credits and tech specs. Nothing too exciting here.

While I did enjoy this film about the enigmatic Crumb, I can't say that I would endorse buying it, unless of course you are a huge fan of the man himself. I would highly suggest that you rent this flick, though, because it is such a marvelously crafted portrait of a truly unique man. Still, if I buy a movie to have in my mammoth collection, I obviously expect it to have a lot of replay value. This is one of the best doc*mentaries I've ever seen, that even caused an uproar when it and Hoop Dreams failed to even get a nomination for Best Doc*mentary at the Oscars that year, an uproar so huge that it even influenced the way that this category was voted upon. But even with all the history, the fact that it's Zwigoff's first flick, I still can't have this in my collection because I can't imagine a situation where I'd want to watch this again. What I'm basically saying is that you should definitely watch this flick, and I'm very glad that I finally got to see this. But I don't have any plans to watch it in the near future.