Classic Flicks:Terry Swigoff's Crumb

By Joseph Allencherril     11/18/10 6:00pm

Although he has been compared to classical painters, Robert Crumb does not work with oils, pastels or charcoal: Crumb led the underground comic movement of the 1960s with a scratchy drawing style and a controversial autobiographical edge that remain influential in graphic literature today. Few films probe into the depths of artistic genius better than Terry Zwigoff's Crumb. We are given a look into Crumb's depressing childhood, when he is bullied at home by his domineering father and at school: Crumb remembers, "I was good looking, but there was something wrong with my personality; I was the most unpopular kid in school." Even as an adult, Crumb is an outcast, enjoying obscure blues records and collecting dated pop-cultural ephemera. He speaks frankly of his outrageous fantasies and shows us the impetus behind his more twisted comics. Becoming an artist was Crumb's way of dealing with a culture that rejected him from the beginning.

In Zwigoff's words, "The idea was to do a documentary on the three Crumb brothers. It was never a documentary about Robert Crumb in my head."

The film is not a biopic; Crumb is more like an Errol Morris film, with interviews of three subjects, except one of them happens to be a famous and subversive comic artist. Robert Crumb appears relatively normal compared to his reclusive elder brother Charles, who rarely left the house inhabited by the Crumbs' meth-addicted mother, or his younger brother Maxon, a painter who sleeps on a bed of nails and runs tape through his intestines for the sake of cleanliness. Charles committed suicide shortly after the production of the film. How could these bizarre familial circumstances not spawn a great artist? It becomes evident that for Robert Crumb, drawing comics is his method for suppressing his madness.

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The film does not strive to be touching or sentimental. Unlike other documentaries, Crumb is simultaneously dark, humorous, sad and engaging. Unfortunately, there seems to be an unfair public prejudice toward documentaries: maybe this is because the term "documentary" implies learning is involved, and many of us do not go to the theater to be educated. Isn't that what the Discovery and History Channel are for? The Academy for Best Documentary Feature frequently goes to independent and foreign films which most viewers have never heard of, let alone seen. Aside from the films of Michael Moore, there has not been an American documentary in recent memory which has truly penetrated public consciousness. (March of the Penguins was a French production.) Because movies are often seen as investments, Hollywood's money tends to go into projects from which money is likely to come out of.

Don't let the low production values fool you; great films like Crumb go unnoticed by skeptic film viewers for that very reason. I shamefully admit to judging an old DVD of Crumb as a throwaway based on its kitschy cover (which was recently replaced by the new Criterion Collection release, featuring a meticulously cross-hatched self portrait of Crumb).

Aside from Louie Bluie (1985), I cannot honestly recommend any other Zwigoff films. However, Crumb's entire drawing corpus - from 1968 onward - I can recommend to you. If this film has any effect on a viewer, I hope it will be to seek out Crumb's work. Comics have unfairly been delegated to a lower form of art, and are fading, along with printed newspapers, into oblivion. Aside from "Peanuts" and "The Far Side," very few newspaper comic strips have penetrated the public imagination. But there is another world of graphic literature awaiting those who will give the medium a chance.

Joseph Allencherril is a Will Rice College sophomore. Classic Flicks is a column rediscovering the best films that cinema has to offer.

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