Crumb (1994)

User Rating:

7.7/10   

Director:

Terry Zwigoff

Release Date:

28 April 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Tagline:

Weird sex · Obsession · Comic books

Plot:

A cinematic portrait of the controversial comic book writer/artist and his traumatized family.

Plot Keywords:

Art | Satire | Underground | Comic Book | Consumerism

Awards:

13 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Robert Crumb	...	Himself
Aline Kominsky	...	Herself (as Aline Crumb)
Charles Crumb	...	Himself
Maxon Crumb	...	Himself
Robert Hughes	...	Himself
Martin Muller	...	Himself
Don Donahue	...	Himself
Dana Morgan	...	Herself (as Dana Crumb)
Trina Robbins	...	Herself
Spain Rodriguez	...	Himself
Bill Griffith	...	Himself
Deirdre English	...	Herself
Peggy Orenstein	...	Herself
Beatrice Crumb	...	Herself
Kathy Goodell	...	Herself

MPAA:

Rated R for graphic sex-related cartoons, and for language.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | France:U | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Superior Pictures

Trivia:

Media reports following the film said that Robert Crumb later told Terry Zwigoff that he hated the film. According to Zwigoff, however, this never happened and the two still speak on a regular basis.

Goofs:

Factual errors: "San Francisco" is misspelled in the closing titles. The caption reads: "Max Crumb still lives in San Francicsco".

Quotes:

Robert Crumb: France isn't - you know - perfect, or anything, but - it's just - oh, slightly less evil than the United States.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ghost World (2001)

Soundtrack:

Zap Jam Boogie-Woogie

candid

Crumb takes a deeply personal look at 60's counterculture artist Robert Crumb. The film focuses upon three decades of Crumb's artwork to reconstruct his unhappy childhood, days with Zap Comix in the late 60's, `dark side' period and recent life. Interviews with him, his wife Aline, family and friends reveal the motives behind his astounding creativity. Crumb is sometimes hilarious, often depressing and always entertaining – a rare combination in a documentary film.

During childhood, Crumb and his brothers Charles and Maxon found solace from their tyrannical father in comic books and drawing cartoons. Crumb escaped the mental illness that ended both his brother's careers as artists (Charles was equally as talented), but otherwise had a perfectly miserable childhood and adolescence. Socially awkward, bullied at school and rejected by women, he decided in 1962 (at age 17) to take revenge upon society `by becoming a famous artist'.

In 1966, his chemically inspired `revelations of some seamy side of America's subconscious' caught the eye of a Haight Street publisher in San Francisco and Zap Comix was born. Zap was an outlet for his creative energy, which was rooted in his social difficulties. He was uninterested in money and once turned down a $100,000 contract – a huge sum of money in those days. Although identified with the hippie crowd, he could not relate to their culture: `My main motivation [for drawing] was to get some of that free love action'.

After a few years of fame, he retired from Zap to express the darker side of his nature. His later work frequently contained sadistic and violent themes and was sometimes labeled as pornography by friends and critics alike. Even Crumb isn't sure of his intent: `Maybe I should be locked up and my pencils taken away from me'.

Critic Robert Hughes says that in Crumb's world there are no heroes and `even the victims are comic' – ideas that don't jive with traditional American culture. But Crumb has always considered himself to be an outsider and enjoys the feeling of `being very removed or extremely separated from the rest of humanity and the world in general'. `Words fail me, pictures aren't much better' to describe his disgust with American consumerism. He now lives in France because its culture is `slightly less evil than the United States'.

The film is embarrassingly candid about unhappy details of Crumb's life, such as his brothers' mental illness, experiments with drugs and ambivalent attitudes towards women. Yet it is apparent that there is no misery or violence in this man – it's all on paper. (Rating: A)