I enjoyed this documentary, directed by Martin Scorsese, which presents Fran Lebowitz doing what it may be she does best: talking. It's not a completely fresh idea, and Fran Lebowitz may be a "character," but she is an independent and very entertaining woman - two things I greatly admire.
Scorsese presents her attractively and I suppose I have to wonder: what was left out? How was the narrative shaped? If I viewed the entirety of her remarks would I have been disappointed?
I remember reading something about John Huston -- or perhaps it wasn't about John Huston -- but that the best directors love actors. Perhaps the best directors love people, and that warmth is an important job requirement, and perhaps it's the warmth of admiring friendship that frames this portrait of Lebowitz.
This movie seems like an intimate portrait, although it really isn't. Perhaps it's the closeness of the camera or the fact that Lebowitz's comedy seems so personal, to spring from a unique personal viewpoint. Her comedy is observational, like Seinfeld's, but so much more personal although not really self-revealing.
I feel as though it's hard for me to come to any kind of judgment about Lebowitz, because I haven't thought about her for a long time (I read Metropolitan Life but long ago) and I suppose I shouldn't let that get about, especially if I'm an admirer of Lebowitz, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on my extremely dull life.
Her timing is excellent and she's unafraid to use expressive gesture to help convey the import. I see now that gestures do not convey meaning; they convey punctuation.
Let me paraphrase, badly, one of the funniest things (I think) she says in the film. She's talking about her writer's block. She says something like, "I am the foremost waster of time of my generation. I didn't look at the clock from, say, 1979 to 2007, when I suddenly thought, "Hmm .. gotta get busy."
But comedy is hard, and more so for women, and I think she does it very, very well.
Scorsese presents her attractively and I suppose I have to wonder: what was left out? How was the narrative shaped? If I viewed the entirety of her remarks would I have been disappointed?
I remember reading something about John Huston -- or perhaps it wasn't about John Huston -- but that the best directors love actors. Perhaps the best directors love people, and that warmth is an important job requirement, and perhaps it's the warmth of admiring friendship that frames this portrait of Lebowitz.
This movie seems like an intimate portrait, although it really isn't. Perhaps it's the closeness of the camera or the fact that Lebowitz's comedy seems so personal, to spring from a unique personal viewpoint. Her comedy is observational, like Seinfeld's, but so much more personal although not really self-revealing.
I feel as though it's hard for me to come to any kind of judgment about Lebowitz, because I haven't thought about her for a long time (I read Metropolitan Life but long ago) and I suppose I shouldn't let that get about, especially if I'm an admirer of Lebowitz, because it seems to have no effect whatsoever on my extremely dull life.
Her timing is excellent and she's unafraid to use expressive gesture to help convey the import. I see now that gestures do not convey meaning; they convey punctuation.
Let me paraphrase, badly, one of the funniest things (I think) she says in the film. She's talking about her writer's block. She says something like, "I am the foremost waster of time of my generation. I didn't look at the clock from, say, 1979 to 2007, when I suddenly thought, "Hmm .. gotta get busy."
But comedy is hard, and more so for women, and I think she does it very, very well.
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