Crumb

Colour, BETA SP
USA, 1994, 119 min
Section: Sundance at Karlovy Vary

Synopsis

A documentary film by Terry Zwigoff, the maker of Ghost World and Bad Santa, which portrays comic book artist Robert Crumb. Though it may seem the standard biographical documentary, this film is one of the most interesting examples of its genre from the last decade of the 20th century. Crumb is shown not only from the perspectives of his mother, two brothers, ex-girlfriends, and current wife, but also through his controversial work itself. It is safe to say that it was largely thanks to his work that the founder of American underground comics – whose family life might be a psychoanalyst’s delight – kept his wits; through the possibility of transforming his demons into bizarre tales and even more bizarre characters. Crumb is a fascinating account of the meeting of two similarly eccentric artists whose individual “ghost worlds” are divided only by the camera, and a humorous, albeit dark, journey through the subconscious of a rather peculiar individual.

About the director

Terry Zwigoff (b. 1948, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA), a unique filmmaker and comic books aficionado, came to film through his passion for the blues. Two years of collecting material on an outlandish and little-known Chicago bluesman, Howard Armstrong, culminated in the documentary film Louie Bluie (1985). His next project, Crumb (1994), brought Zwigoff not only a number of awards but also third place among the most commercially successful documentary films of all time. His fiction film debut, Ghost World (2000), premiered internationally in the 2001 Karlovy Vary IFF competition. Though marginalised by the jury when handing out the prizes, it remained one of the most appreciated films of the festival. In 2003, Zwigoff presented his somewhat cynical version of a Christmas movie, Bad Santa. His most recent picture, Art School Confidential, which again saw him collaborating with D. Clowes, was first screened at this year’s festival at Sundance.