Lenny - "Messiah at the Strip Club"

Lenny (1974)


H: We went into this movie not having seen or heard any of Lenny Bruce or is "shtick". What did you think about the interview structure of the film?

K: The interview structure was well done because it moved the film, but I think another structure that worked was the standup bits that introduced scenes or as audio played over other scenes. I wished that they did more of the latter because you got to hear the events of his life behind the standup. The interview format felt less credible because at some point we didn't trust people being interviewed. Lenny's standup always felt true. The agent talked about the fact that he owned the movie rights of Lenny's story and you find out that Lenny's wife was on drugs for much of their marriage. You meet Lenny's mother under fraudulent circumstances too - she's using the agent against Lenny.

H: Because Lenny is dead already when the interviews are taking place, the only testimony we get straight from Lenny is his standup. The details of his life come from his wife, agent, and mother. You're right to question their credibility. Lenny seems to most honest, especially when he's on stage. That's what makes him appealing and he bills himself as the one person who won't bullshit you. He even says that if he really cared about things like teachers' salaries, he would give the money he makes on standup to them, but he doesn't. He's like William Holden's character in Network (1976) - he's "mad as hell" and he's going to be really rational about exposing phonies.

K: This movie shows 2 minute scenes of really important events in his life. Good writing does this. What might be mundane in every day life is a defining moment when you look back later, like Lenny eating at a restaurant with his daughter waiting for Honey (his wife) because she's late. It shows us that he connects with his daughter without telling us blatantly "I dress my daughter, I stay awake with my daughter." He doesn't explicitly say, "If honey doesn't show up in five minutes, I'm divorcing her." The scene is short, the scene transitions to him being alone. Sometimes in movies it feels like you're waiting for a character to make an obvious decision. That's not the case with this movie - things keep happening.

H: He talks about the substance of that scene in his standup when he jokes about custody. He's really honest about the negatives of having custody of a child, how it requires a lot of effort. He also says it's a form of revenge. He enunciates the honest experiences of being a husband and father that other people wouldn't admit to out of fear and cowardice.

K: Do you think we saw enough of his standup in the movie? I know this is a movie about Lenny Bruce, but it seems he is defined as a comedian and a potty mouth in popular culture.

H: I would think that this movie would expect prior exposure to Lenny Bruce's standup, but it doesn't, which I like. It was a good mixture of standup, scenes from his life, and scenes of the interviews. In that way, it presents him as a full person - a father, a drug user, a comedian, a fun guy to hang out with, a philanderer, and a sage, among other things.

K: If you really wanted to learn more about Lenny you would have to be reading books about him, listening to his albums. Maybe this movie is for people who wouldn't normally read a book about him or listen to his standup.

H: Is that the role of the biopic? To introduce us to the full person instead of the charicature? Does this reconcile people's view of Lenny as nothing but a potty mouth with the actual guy and the actual things he said on stage? We see him in actuality as a very smart person using dirty words for a higher purpose, to expose hypocrisy.

K: People who make biopics admire and are interested in the person who they depict, however, it is possible for someone to make a biopic about someone they're interested in but who they don't admire, like the Times writer in the movie. If you admire someone, you want to share that person with others.

H: How would you rank this movie when compared with other recent biopics? Most biopics about singers/performers, seem to follow the same trajectory with mixed success - a shaky start, early fame, abuse of that fame, drugs/marital problems, things fall apart, then they die or quit or rise above the drugs/marital problems.

K: In Walk the Line (2005) and Ray (2004), those characters ended up in a shit hole that, to the audience, it looked like they'd never get out of, but then they did. This biopic didn't dwell on drug abuse. The drug abuse didn't feel hopeless. What felt hopeless were his arrests and trials for obscenity.

H: There are plenty of movies about drug abuse, some good, some bad. What we needed out this was a movie about Lenny Bruce and we got just that. This movie was about words and language and all its uses - to amuse, to make people think, to incriminate, to sadden, to anger, to imprison, etc. Lenny shows us that words are just words and we often give words themselves too much weight and the thoughts behind them not enough. Words are important because they help us communicate, but they also help us miscommunicate. The most important thing to Lenny was words and when his ability to speak in a public forum was threatened, he became understandably indignant. He didn't want his words taken away. Do you think he was arrested because of the words he used or was that a pretense for arresting him because of his message?

K: It was probably his message. You're supposed to assume that he was the first public person giving voice to those ideas, which probably isn't the case. It's hard to say he was arrested because of his obscenities versus his message. Do you think his obscenities made him famous before his message did? He wasn't a messiah at the strip club.

I go into historical movies like this as a baby. Ultimately this movie and Lenny's legacy will have to withstand new history piling on top of it.

H: It's tragic seeing him arrested for what is said on every HBO special by lesser minds.

K: The tagline of the trailer was something like "He was arrested for things people do now all the time." Of course. People were burned at the stake in the 17th century and they aren't now! Not to put down Lenny, his comedy, or what he did for first amendment rights, but...

H: Time goes on and, at least in the case of America so far, culture liberalizes and people and behaviors that were once on the fringe become acceptable and even mainstream. That being said, I think we're making light of the fact that he almost went to jail several times for words he used. We should also remember that in lots of countries today, people are jailed for ideas considered dangerous to their regimes or words that go against cultural norms.

Did the movie make you want to see his standup?

K: Yeah, I'm always interested in standup that changes how comedians can be successful today. Lenny Bruce enabled comedians to speak freely. After having read Steve Martin's memoirs about his standup career, Steve Martin enabled comedians to speak freely to a crowd of thousands. He started arena comedy. Their standup careers had the same elements - women, drugs, and fame. Steve Martin is so passive with these elements. Lenny Bruce isn't. Lenny's totally involved and indulged in every aspect of these things. If we throw in Richard Pryor, he wouldn't have been able to talk about lighting himself on fire had there been no Lenny Bruce. How nice it must have been to be a comedian in the late 1960s/early 1970s and have that freedom.

H: So we're subscribing the great man theory of history, where it took Lenny Bruce and only Lenny Bruce saying dirty things and getting in trouble for it to change cultural norms. One could also make the argument that if he hadn't done it, someone else would have. Maybe Richard Pryor would have taken it upon himself to change the culture and make these things acceptable, maybe not in church or on the radio (where you can't say shit) but on the stage.

K: Sometimes American audiences get it right. Sometimes what's popular coincides with what's good and honest. It's refreshing because sometimes we get Britney Spears.

H: Who's also done obscene things - Lenny Bruce never showed his vijayjay on stage, he just talked about them.