On some level, it’s probably fitting that the
first documentary about groundbreaking hipster comedian Lenny Bruce, released
less than 10 years after his death, is a low-budget enterprise shot on grungy
black-and-white film. After all, Bruce spent much of his career playing smoky
jazz clubs, even though he briefly enjoyed success on national television. In
other words, if Lenny Bruce Without Tears were a stronger film, it might
feel like just the right lo-fi tribute to a controversial funnyman who brought
uncomfortable truths into his routines. Unfortunately, the fact that
writer/producer/director Fred Baker largely constructs the film from
second-hand footage makes Lenny Bruce
Without Tears little more than a fawning clip show. Further, Baker’s only
original interviews are with tangential figures who rehash familiar lore about
Bruce as a tragic trailblazer. Plus, on some level, the movie feels somewhat
exploitive and opportunistic—Baker’s real-life friendship with Bruce was used
as a marketing angle, and Baker’s inconsequential narration repeatedly states
that the filmmaker and his late subject were pals. If this half-assed doc is
the best thing Baker could put together, one gets the impression that Baker and
Bruce were more like passing acquaintances than true comrades.
Yet the
documentary’s lack of substance isn’t its biggest flaw. Instead, what makes Lenny
Bruce Without Tears genuinely awkward is Baker’s incomprehensible aesthetic
choice to employ experimental-cinema montages beneath audio of Bruce’s recorded
routines. For instance, one such montage collides such disassociated imagery as
Boris Karloff mugging in an old horror movie, Lyndon Johnson giving a speech, a
marching band in action, and a monkey typing (!), none of which has anything to
do with what Bruce is saying on the soundtrack. Extended video clips of Bruce
doing stand-up on The Steve Allen Show aren’t much more interesting;
while the comedy bits themselves are worthwhile as entertainment and as
history, Baker simply runs the clips start to finish, evincing a major absence
of curatorial discretion. And in his most nonsensical flourish, Baker upends
the whole hero-worship vibe of the doc by including shock-value footage
and stills of Bruce’s naked corpse, captured shortly after the comedian died of
a drug overdose. Not exactly the most respectful treatment of a “friend.”
Lenny Bruce Without Tears:
FUNKY
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