Fascinating, penetrating character study!
I first saw Crumb on IFC a few years ago and have seen it several times since then on the Starz Channel. Admittedly, I could not finish my first viewing without a slight sense of physical illness overcoming my interest in the film. I consider myself of fairly stern constitution, but this documentary of Robert Crumb was my first exposure to the artist's work (I first thought I was in for a documentary of postmodernist composer George Crumb) let alone his agressively and sometimes shockingly eccentric persona. Its amazing how the drawings can be repellent but also express a penetrating, disturbing intellect unloosed. Maybe Crumb is cynically using his tremendous talent as an excuse to play voyeur to his most vulgar fantasies and maybe even if he is I wonder if this does nothing to invalidate the power of the drawings? Perhaps people actually familiar with these comics might offer a better interpretation. For my part, kudos to the filmmakers for this remarkable expose that avoids the mistake of many biographic documentaries in trying too hard to define their subjects and end up losing much of their films' potential in the effort.
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