Ep1037: There's No Stalgia Like Nostalgia: CRUMB (1994)

Kicking the Seat

Nostalgia is a tricky thing, and there's perhaps no better example than Ian and Pat's review of Crumb!

Chronicling the lineage and linework of Underground Comix legend R. Crumb, Terry Zwigoff's 1994 documentary was once one of the guys' favorite films--and it may still be, even if the passage of time and evolving sensibilities make it far more difficult to recommend now than when it was released. Troubled by an oppressive, abusive early childhood peopled by mentally disturbed siblings and parents, Crumb channeled his social awkwardness and innate misanthropy into highly influential counter-culture comics.

Having shunned commercial success and any illusions of fitting in with polite society, we meet Crumb as he and his wife, Aline, are finishing up a move from California to the South of France (where they'll move into a countryside home purchased with a suitcase full of Crumb's old sketchbooks). Zwigoff captures their informal farewells with family, colleagues, and critics--in the process asking audiences to wonder if being a well-regarded artistic genius is worth a life of numbness, doubt, and alienation.

In this spoilerific review, Ian and Pat talk about what's changed in their perception of R. Crumb as an artist; how his work influenced Ian's own creative endeavors; and the eeriness of watching seemingly contemporary sociopolitical themes echoing back through the decades.

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Show Links

• Watch the Crumb trailer.

• As mentioned in the show, check out the trailers for:

  • Comic Book Confidential

  • American Splendor

• As mentioned in the show, you can pick up Crumb on Blu-ray from The Criterion Collection.

• Keep up with Pat at HollywoodChicago.com.

• Listen to Pat's movie reviews on the radio at STAR 96.7.