REVIEW: Crumb (film)

Crumb (film)

Crumb film released 1995

Crumb (film):

·         It is of interesting note that Crumb reluctantly allowed this movie to be made

·         It is also of note that the sisters did not wanted to be interviewed for the film

·         Finally, of the points of the Crumb family’s reluctance to be documented, it is of note that one of Crumb’s brothers committed suicide some time after the interview and the other brother giving up on cartooning altogether

·         The mother is also noted to be in her own depressed state during the film’s duration

·         While Crumb is sometimes seen as a cartoonist who draws the proportions of his women with overemphasized features, there are women who praise said style for the apparent bluntness of sexuality towards less skinnier women to be a socially acceptable thing

·         It is of interest that R. Crumb’s children have artistic talent, be it from the nurture of being raised by a cartoonist who disciplined him or a continued lineage of cartoonist given that Crumb and his siblings seem to display artistic prowess

·         For Fritz the Cat to be killed off due to the nature of Crumb’s disdain for the film is an interesting one, as he took the action of violence against his art as a means to get back at the media industry who he saw as perverting his works in the ways he didn’t want it to be

·         Despite noting himself not to be one assertive to his sexuality, it is of note that he did date several quite attractive women and did show up in a porn magazine feature shot with noted attractive women

·         Given his disdain for the modern aspect of consumerism, Crumb constantly criticized the consumer nature of America in one scene where he sat sketching while other people walked by with their brand logo shirts and loud boom box music (given that this film was being made during the 90’s, people were carrying boom boxes around)

·         During the duration of the film, Crumb aimed to move him and his family to Europe, where he saw difference not in what Europe held but rather in what it didn’t had in comparison to Midwest America

·         It was noted that Crumb did take some drugs in order to gain the inspiration for his works, especially for his works with Zap Comics

·         He was noted to even be shocked with his own work, as with the case of his tale of Mr. Natural with a headless women, which was given to his male friend to be a sex object despite the protest of the young man, who would later have sex with said body of a woman yet feel guilt for it afterward

·         His artistic styles of telling the racist Black American comics were interesting in that he didn’t held back in depicting harsh black face representations in his drawings. While objectionable, it does convey his own voice in his racism: as it is not flattering or anything but a personal opinion for his view of Black Americans

·         The Crumb family as children notably lived in “the Projects” of their neighborhood and had many issues with their father. They also notably formed their own comic book group where they drew comics. With this, it can be seen that even at a young age R. Crumb and his brothers had artistic talent

·         It is to note that R. Crumb consistently turned down fortune opportunities to maintain his personal integrity of having his works unabridged and unaltered for the viewing audience, a view that he claimed happened with the “Keep trucking” phenomenon and the animated adaptation of “Fritz the Cat.”

·         The film also provided views from other underground cartoonists on their opinion of R. Crumb, most praising him yet some female artisans criticized his later depictions of women being sex objects when he previously depicted women as sexual yet independent and strong in his previous works

·         It is also interesting to see R. Crumb’s son and his opinion of his father, as both a mentor and someone he notes as eccentric despite being his son

·         R. Crumb also notably loves his daughter over all other women, consistently noting in the movie how he felt no love for most women he knew (past sex objects) yet he felt intimate with his daughter

·         R. Crumb notably shows features of xenophobia towards the development of the American culture as opposed to people moving in. He criticized people building houses at one point where he lived in California yet it was due to the advancement of development in the area and the destruction of the natural surroundings. This is also prevalent with R. Crumb’s critique on how consumerism took over the American mindset

Bibliography

Crumb. Dir. Terry Zwigoff. Perf. Robert Crumb. Sony Pictures Classics, 1995. DVD.