Crumb [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Terry Zwigoff

Overview

So well-regarded was the documentary Crumb (1994) that the failure of it and of the same year's equally acclaimed Hoop Dreams (1994) to result in Oscar nominations caused a media furor which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to revamp its documentary nomination process. Robert Crumb is a respected but controversial underground comic book artist and writer whose creations include the popular "Keep on Truckin'" and Fritz the Cat (1972). Crumb's adult subject matter includes weird sexual obsessions, social criticism, and personal, confessional observations about abnormal human psychology. The genesis and meaning of Crumb's work is explained through a series of interviews with his colleagues, former lovers, and especially family members, which reveal a horrific upbringing that has crippled both Crumb and his siblings -- but has also fueled the artist's groundbreaking work. A long-time friend of the film's subject, director Terry Zwigoff followed Crumb (1994) with another comic book-related project, Ghost World (2000), a drama based on a story from the anthology series "Eightball" by Daniel Clowes.

Product Details

Release Date:	03/21/2010
UPC:	0715515061315
Original Release:	1994
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Language:	English
Time:	2:00:00
Sales rank:	9,411

Special Features

Two audio commentaries, one featuring Zwigoff, from 2010, and one with Zwigoff and critic Roger Ebert, from 2006; More than fifty minutes of unused footage; Stills gallery

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Robert Hughes	Art Critic
Maxon Crumb	Actor
David Boeddinghaus	Composer

Technical Credits

Terry Zwigoff	Director,Producer
Albert Berger	Executive Producer
Lianne Halfon	Executive Producer
Lynn O'Donnell	Producer
Lawrence Wilkinson	Executive Producer
David Lynch	Producer
Scott Breindel	Sound/Sound Designer

Editorial Reviews

Without flinching, Terry Zwigoff's documentary film presents one of America's most bizarre, perverse, and important underground comic book creators, Robert Crumb. By focusing on Crumb's early influences, particularly his older brother, Charles, an artistic genius done in by the family's funky dysfunctionality, the film suggests the sources for the darkly creative mind that has given us "Keep on Truckin'," Fritz the Cat, and Mr. Natural. The documentary consists largely of Q&A's with Crumb's colleagues, family members, and ex-lovers, old family photographs, archival drawings, and real-time scenes of Crumb interacting or explaining his artistic efforts. Ultimately what emerges from the montage is a portrait of the artist as a cantankerous eccentric. While the art historian Robert Hughes likens Crumb to Bruegel and Goya, the feminist cultural historian Deirdre English (both she and Hughes appear in the film) notes the disturbing, misogynistic streak running through the Crumb portfolio. Creepy but utterly riveting and ultimately quite moving, CRUMB is remarkable for its daring honesty and incisive detail.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff was able to make Crumb because of his friendship with the subject, but the film is definitely not hagiography. Because much of the artist's work is so personal, any study of Robert Crumb must take into account his prickly and decidedly randy personality. Zwigoff also had a great sense of timing, catching Crumb in a bit of a mid-life crisis, as he decamps from his longtime home in California to the south of France. The energy of the 1960s which fueled some of Crumb's most celebrated art has long ago dissipated, and when Crumb convincingly disavows being identified with that tumultuous time (he hates rock music, preferring to listen to his collection of blues music on original 78 rpm vinyl), you sense that he's a man who has been out of step all his life. Rather than merely depict the symptoms of Crumb's worried mind, Zwigoff includes enormously effective interview material with two of Robert's brothers (one of whom died after film was completed). Few filmmakers are allowed that kind of privileged look into their subjects' upbringing, and the brothers' recollections of their childhood and ruminations on their blighted lives suggest that art provided Robert with a reasonably effective way of dealing with past traumas.

All Movie Guide - Tom Wiener