America killed Lenny Bruce. Or, maybe it was his own drug addiction.
Lenny (1974)
The film is now available in a 4K+Blu-ray two-disc edition from The Criterion Collection. A separate Blu-ray only edition is also available.
Lenny Bruce's words, as voiced by Dustin Hoffman, and Honey Harlow's body, as portrayed by Valerie Perrine, introduce Bob Fosse's Lenny, the filmmaker's follow-up to his Academy Award-winning Cabaret (1972).
The film was shot strikingly in high-contrast black-and-white photography by Bruce Surtees, who began to establish his own credentials in 1971 on Don Siegal's The Beguiled, then became known for working with Clint Eastwood. (Bruce Surtees' father, multiple Academy Award-winner Robert Surtees, was nominated for the elegiac black-and-white photography in The Last Picture Show (1972).)
Yet the film is distinguished even more so by its editing, which struck me on a repeat viewing as notably jagged, interspersing comic monologues by Lenny Bruce -- from different periods of his career -- with the biographical narrative. (An interview with editor Alan Heim is included in the special features, as detailed below.) The year 1951 marked the meeting of Lenny and Honey; Lenny is shown on stage as an awkward comic telling old jokes and doing impressions, while Honey is a polished stripper with studied dance moves.
Rather than the traditional, cinematic three-act structure, the film divides more easily into two acts: Lenny's rise as a comic with Honey as his partner, and Lenny's fall as a comic, consumed by censorship trials, police arrests, and occasional long-distance calls with the oft-imprisoned Honey. The transition from Lenny, a comic telling bad jokes to a scattered audience of men, to Lenny, a hip comic telling hip jokes to a full house of hip hippies, is abrupt, as if it happened overnight.
Late in the first act, we see Lenny and Honey falling into drug addiction, which plagued both of them for years and ultimately greatly hampered Lenny's career as a comic, likely even more so than the notoriety he gained as a "dirty" comic for the profanity, racial jokes, and sexual jesting that got him arrested multiple times on obscenity charges. As pointed out in the audio commentary, his drug charges and arrests are omitted.
The drugs are not the point in Fosse's film, however. What remains pointy and poignant is the lost potential. Lenny Bruce was only 40 when he died of a drug overdose. Only 40 years of age! Imagine what he could have done if he was born 10 years later. Or conquered his addiction to drugs.
Yes, he was trampled upon by government forces for speech that should have never caused him to be imprisoned or for his career to be derailed. Lenny rails about the loss that will never be realized. More's the pity. It's a provocative film, even if its episodic nature limits its own potential.
Criterion's new edition combines the film in 4K on one disc, with audio commentary included. It's a sterling new digital restoration with an uncompressed monaural soundtrack.
What I love about watching black-and-white films in 4K is that the blacks are infinite in the absence of color, providing a great contrast with the whites; here, the white tones are (intentionally) grainy for the interview segments, but are softly lit for the dramatic scenes, which makes for a pleasing visual experience.
That being said, Lenny is not a movie that will test your home-video equipment to its limits. I am not an expert in such things, but my naked eyes could not discern a notable uptick in the 4K visual quality from the Blu-ray that's included in the package. I'm sure others will be able to better discern the increased resolution and wax poetic on its merits.
Recorded in 2015 for the Twilight Time Blu-ray release, the audio commentary is a lively conversational analysis by Nick Redman and Julie Kirgo that recenters the film as the first of Fosse's semi-autobiographic trilogy. According to them, writer Julian Barry first drafted a screenplay about Lenny Bruce after the comic's untimely death in 1966. When no one wanted to make the film, Barry converted it into a stage play, which ran successfully in 1971 and earned Cliff Gorman a Tony Award for his performance. (Fosse wanted to cast Gorman for the film, but was rebuffed; notably, Gorman played a Lenny Bruce-like character in the film within the film in Fosse's All That Jazz.)
They point out that Lenny and Honey's criminal history in the early 1950s was left out, comment extensively on Fosse's early career as a dancer, choreographer, and Broadway director, his problematic relationship with women in his work and in his life, his challenging professional relationship with Dustin Hoffman on the film, and disagree pleasantly about a choice that Fosse made about an uncut 7 ½ minute sequence late in the film that is decidedly uncomfortable. It's a lively, essential commentary.
The interview with editor Alan Heim, recorded in 2023 and running some 22 minutes, recalls how he was hired to work on Fosse's Liza with a Z television special in 1972, the working relationship that developed between editor and director, the reason that Heim suggested making the editing jagged, the uncut 7 ½ minute sequence late in the film, their collaboration on All That Jazz, for which Heim received an Academy Award, and Star 80. It's a very warm interview, relating many insightful details which reinforced my impressions on Lenny and All That Jazz.
From 1975, a six-minute excerpt from a French television features brief interviews with Dustin Hoffman and Valerie Perrine, who are dubbed into French (with English subtitles provided). It's a nice curiosity on a disc that is short on extras.
The original trailer is also included. Running 2:50, it includes several moments that modern audiences might term "spoilers."
The package also includes a 28-page staple-bound booklet, featuring Mark Harris' excellent essay "High-Wire Act," in which he places the film in context with Bob Fosse's entire career. Scott Hornstein's lengthy interview with Fosse, first published in 1975 as the filmmaker was recovering from emergency heart surgery, is excerpted. Among many other comments about the production, Fosse says he and Dustin Hoffman "made a deliberate attempt to play down his involvement with drugs. ... What I was interested in was a man who stood against hypocrisy and for the use of free speech. And also the man who helped change the style of comedy."
Conclusion: The new 4K is highly-recommended, especially for fans of Bob Fosse's slender filmmaking career.