Lorne
(USA, 101 min.)
Dir. Morgan Neville
Prod. Morgan Neville, Lauren Belfer
For the last few years, Oscar winning filmmaker Morgan Neville (20 Feet from Stardom) has been on a tear. He’s looked in depth at the careers of musical legends like Keith Richards and Paul McCartney, delved into the mind of one of the most cerebral and celebrated comedians ever in Steve Martin, crafted a LEGO animated portrait of Pharrell Williams, and sunk his teeth into the tale of the celebrated chef and raconteur Anthony Bourdain. However, his latest documentary, a portrait of the producer/writer/impresario Lorne Michaels, may prove to the biggest test of his skills by extracting a narrative from a private individual who for decades has been the heart of Saturday Night Live (SNL).
The broad strokes of Michaels’ biography are well known. The man born Lorne David Lipowitz was delivered in Toronto, beginning his career on local radio. He headed to Hollywood to work as a writer, then soon returned north to star alongside Hart Pomerantz in a variety show that also showcased talents of likes future SNL cast member Dan Aykroyd. In 1975, Michaels assembled a retinue of his so-called “Not Ready for Primetime Players” and helped changed television and sketch comedy history.
It’s a running gag of sorts in Neville’s Lorne that this tale of SNL’s birth has practically been beaten into the ground by overtelling. From numerous authorized, Broadway video-produced docs through to Jason Reitman’s fictionalized telling of that harried, coke-fuelled first show starring George Carlin, this engaging yet well-known storyline hardly needs further articulation. What’s often missed in all of the cacophony of comedic commemoration is a focus on the reticent person at the core of much of the show’s lasting legacy, and that’s exactly the way Michaels always wanted it.
And so, what’s most fun about Neville’s film is that it’s in many ways about an almost Sisyphean task, climbing up the unclimbable hill, trying to break down the walls of this sardonic subject. Numerous eloquent and engaging collaborators, many of whom have worked with Michaels for years, talk about how they actually don’t know him very well. Paul Simon, whose appearances on TV working with Michaels pre-dated the first SNL episodes, seems like a rare figure truly in the know, while Lorne’s current wife and children are seemingly shielded from introspection about his life outside of 30 Rock.
Many who consider themselves beholden to Lorne for their success, including the likes of Conan O’Brien, Jimmy Fallon, and Tina Fey, seem genuinely surprised when Neville brings up a point about Lorne’s past that even they were unaware of. The result is more playful than frustrating, making Michaels’ reticence to let the reality of the man outside of the work environment be known even to colleagues who weathered wars with him.
It’s a tribute to Neville’s tenacity and narrative patience that we get some glimpses over that wall, and for fans of what Michaels has accomplished, there are many insights that feel minor but prove to be anything but insignificant. Even the moments captured during the taping of the show are seen through a unique lens, providing a kind of vérité gaze on the mayhem of doing live television that’s truly welcome.
One way of making up for the lack of access is through the use of Robert Smigel and his collaborators’ TV Funhouse animated sequences, along with former cast member Chris Parnell’s laconic narration that feels celebratory in some moments, while at others akin to the elucidating voiceover from a nature documentary. There is a safari-like sense to the whole affair, with Neville’s camera evoking the sensation of tracking elusive game, making Michaels akin to a snow leopard, or at least one whose most notable trait is to head to the same Italian restaurant for almost half a century on the Tuesday of a show week and order the same food every time.
It’s Lorne’s life, with its mix of chaos and regularity, along with the paradox of taking the silly very seriously, that truly gets exemplified in the film. For what Lorne does better than just about every other version of the SNL story is to fully commit to the idea that while the show is bigger than the man who created it, Michaels’ comedic DNA is woven through just about every element of the series. One must understand that point to grasp the show’s enduring success.
Lorne is a warm, sympathetic portrait, but it’s no mere hagiography. For a man who thrives on chaos yet finds solace in the quiet of Maine, there’s much to learn from a subject who never quite opens up to his interlocutor, no matter how much Neville skilfully prods. The result may be frustrating to audiences that want grand revelations, but even the tiniest of revelations that Michaels concedes are welcome.
Lorne is the story of one man while also the tale of an entire legion of artists who helped make SNL and all his other projects come to the fore. It succeeds by not trying to be definitive. It shines when it admits its inability to crack the code and snag some Rosebud-like revelation. Because of this, it may be one of Neville’s most interesting films formally, highlighting the very challenge of doing justice to such a seemingly mercurial subject. The only way it works, it seems, is to approach Lorne the way that SNL treats the world: with equal parts irreverence and seriousness.
Lorne opens in theatres April 17.
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