For the
sake of not having to write the same intro a million
different ways throughout the rest of time, just know that
this column avoids the overly long and sometimes dull
process of full film reviews and instead opts to break
things down based on what I thought going in, what happened
while I was there and what I learned at the end of it all.
Thanks for reading!
The
Breakdown - Being Elmo
The Impression:
Personally, the story of the man behind Elmo sounds like
emotional dreck, but a lot of the hard-hearted bastards we
call film critics couldn’t stop gushing about this.
The Reality:
Being Elmo suffers the same problems that I had with
Buck: in the effort to highlight the amazing
qualities and struggles of these obviously talented men, the
directors of both films get overly immersed in the
overcoming of the struggles and don’t present round
portraits of their subjects. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer
behind Elmo, is quite clearly a very talented man who had to
struggle through a lot of hardships to get to the point
where he is now. Constance Marks and Philip Shane do a great
job of showcasing Clash’s struggle in parallel to the
history of Jim Henson’s puppet empire, but they never dig
deep enough in terms of who Kevin Clash is. There has to be
something more going on in the mind of someone who is not
only an obvious workaholic but also has chosen a career that
physically hides him from the populace. Clash is genial
enough, but his shyness seems to hide a perfection and drive
for success that has to have more behind it. But Marks and
Shane never dig in to it, they’re more interested in showing
the moments that built Clash up and the moments that brought
him down. As a heart-warming film, it does pretty well. I
laughed and it was nice to learn a little bit more about Jim
Henson, but as a documentary that actually explores a
person’s life, it’s a cardboard cut-out.
The Lesson:
Dig deeper. Always dig deeper.
- Noah Sanders
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