PERFORMANCE ART
by Don Larsson

I've been to my share of live music and comic performances, even sat in the rain to hear people play, but as a rule I don't like crowds, I don't like singalongs, and I don't really care for being in the middle of near-chaotic interactions of live performers and audiences. (Give me the relatively safe and sedate pleasures of movie and even play-going.) So, while on some level I do understand the appeal of rock groups like the Stillwater depicted in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous or the comedians who are the documentary subjects of Spike Lee's Original Kings of Comedy, I come to these films as much to learn about a cultural phenomenon (whether past or present) as to learn about it.

Almost Famous is the easier one to deal with, even though it is more complex as a film. Based on Crowe's own experience as a teenage rock critic, it is actually in the familiar genre territory of the Coming of Age Film. Young William Miller (Patrick Fugit) graduates from being a low-rent freelancer for Lester Bangs' Creem magazine to landing an assignment from Rolling Stone itself, while more or less accidentally being on tour with up-and-coming band Stillwater. Fugit is convincing as a bright, talented, and rather naive young man, although at times his body language and facial expressions reminded me too much of Doogie Howser. I can't say, though, that I was able to grasp where his passion or the band's passion for playing come from. There are the usual cliches about how "It's all about the music, man" but the genuine source of that desire rarely becomes clear, and the few musical examples that try to illustrate it - the band bus group singing along to Elton John and so forth, are charming in their way but hardly illuminating. The little bit of light that does come is in the too-few and too-brief scenes with Phillip Seymour Hoffman as Lester Bangs, sitting guru-like alone among his albums, a suggestion of both devotion and its costs. Where the film succeeds better is in the aspect of personal relations. William is brought along on the tour by the "Band Aids," the self-designated tour followers who want to give the band their complete support short of "actual sex" (as defined by our current President), but even that resolve just sort of slips away with little comment. The major player here is "Penny Lane," a pretty and smart young woman who is not smart enough to see what a losing hand she has dealt herself.

There's also William's relationship with his mother, an interesting study in contradictions--a free-thinking university professor who tries to keep her kids on a very tight and (for 1974) politically correct leash but gives them (or at least her son) far more leeway than any mother I'm aware of. The strength of these roles lies in their performances by, respectively, Kate Hudson (Goldie Hawn's daughter) and Frances McDormand. Both roles could easily have been caricatures, but these two women, McDormand especially, breathe life and joy into their parts. This film is rated R: young men should see it with their mothers.

On the other hand, anyone of a certain age should defintely heed the R rating for Lee's The Original Kings of Comedy. This film of the rather grandly self-titled last concert performance of a two-year tour is sprinkled (actually, larded) with profanities and assaults on everything proper. That's fair enough game for comedy, and I have to admit that although I'm an aging white guy, I laughed a great deal throughout the film. The four comedians (Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, and Bernie Mac) were mostly unknown to me except as names I had seen, so I was not quite sure what to expect. From my perspective, the comedy is not all that "original" and Richard Pyror and others have better claim to the Kingship of such comedy. But these performers are effective in varying degrees. They tend to tackle rather similar topics, but from different enough angles and with different enough styles that they do not wear out their welcome. I do think that the film would be less entertaining if it did not have Steve Harvey as the master of ceremonies, keeping the show going with his own very funny bits. Given that this is a final concert performance, there's surprisingly little insight to be gained from the snippets of backstage action that Lee gives us. (Compare how Scorsese elaborated on The Band's last tour in The Last Waltz.) To his credit, Lee does quite a bit with editing and camerawork, finding a different set of rhythms for each entertainer--still, there's only so much you can do with a three-camera setup, even when one of those cameras is on a remote-control track. How much you laugh will probably depend on your own expectations and life experience, but there's enough here to entertain a much wider audience than the film is likely to get.

CineScene, 2000