Zwigoff wisely uses a format that is unadorned by voice-over narration or explicit explanations, which allows the subjects to speak for themselves (he took the same approach in his first documentary, 1985’s Louie Bluie, which chronicled the obscure string-band musician Howard Armstrong). The film’s primary interest is in how Crumb’s upbringing and familial relations have informed the obsessive sexual and cultural issues at the center of his voluminous artistic output (the publisher Fantagraphics has compiled his work in 17 volumes of comics and 10 volumes of sketches). At various points in the film, which was shot over six years and bears the weight of that time and the sense of reflection it engenders, Zwigoff gives us long montages of Crumb’s most infamous drawings, which allow us to observe and absorb both the masterly detail of his unique black-ink style, while also marveling at how deeply twisted many of them are. His best drawings are both masterpieces of technique and a pipeline straight into the most depraved inner workings of his psyche, something that Crumb never for a second denies.

At other points in the film Zwigoff, who first met Crumb in the early 1970s when they played in a band together, allows the artist to page through his own comics and sketchbooks, explaining the ideas and thoughts behind his drawings, which gives us the unique and compelling experience of watching over an artist’s shoulder as he tries his best to explain himself and his impulses. The fact that Crumb is hyper-aware of his own odd predilections is enhanced by the fact that he is both articulate and all too willing to talk about it, even (or especially) when it involves divulging embarrassing secrets and thoughts, like his childhood sexual attraction to Bugs Bunny and the perpetually unhealed wounds of his own adolescent experience at the hands of uninterested girls and cruel jocks, both of whom end us as endless fodder for his art.

One of five siblings, Crumb was raised in what on the surface appeared to be a “normal” family, although it is revealed that his father (who died in 1982) was violent and demeaning and his mother abused diet pills. His two brothers, Charles and Max, were his childhood friends, and they spent most of their time following older brothers Charles’ lead in drawing comic books as an escape (Crumb’s two sisters declined to be interviewed for the film and are mentioned very little). Early in the film we see Crumb calling his mother and asking if she and his brother Charles would be willing to sit for an interview, which she promptly turns down. However, something changed at some point because Zwigoff was able to get his cameras into the dark, claustrophobic Crumb family home in Philadelphia and interview Charles and, later, their mother and Robert’s younger brother Max. Like Robert, Charles is all too willing to discuss everything about his life, including his various battles with depression and suicidality, the abuse he endured at the hands of their father, and the fact that he has never managed to hold down a job and has rarely left the home he has shared with his mother since the late 1960s. Max is similarly ill-suited to modern life, as he lives in a cramped apartment and spends most of his time immersed in some self-created form of spirituality that involves a great deal of sitting cross-legged, sometimes on a bed of nails.

In a lesser film Charles and Max would come across as just frightening or pathetic or downright weird, and while Zwigoff’s film never shies away from their social and mental maladjustments, it also draws attention to their intelligence, honesty, and artistic prowess. It becomes clear that Robert and his artwork were forged in a hotbed of sibling rivalry, especially with Charles, something to which they both still admit. In fact, Charles notes that he stopped drawing when he determined that Robert was a better artist, although looking over Robert’s shoulder as he thumbs through his brother’s childhood work suggests that it might have been the other way around. Zwigoff is both thoughtful and provocative in structuring most of the film around these family dynamics, as it threatens to steal the spotlight from Robert Crumb’s undeniably crucial place in modern art, but ultimately enhances it by helping us understand that artistic genius is neither born nor practiced in a vacuum.

Robert Crumb is a man haunted by many demons, and interviews with his current wife, ex-wife, son, and ex-girlfriends attest to his numerous interpersonal complications, while interviews with Time art critic Robert Hughes and Mother Jones editor Deidre English underscore how divisive Crumb’s art can be, with the former praising him as “the Brueghel of the last half of the 20th century” and the latter criticizing him for often crossing the line from social satire into degrading pornography. At two hours in length, Crumb feels entirely too short, although one can’t deny that Zwigoff has been particularly efficient in packing every moment with something endearing or revelatory or shocking; in short, the film fascinates at every turn and leaves you wanting more. Its greatness, though, is in its balance of redemption and tragedy: how it shows us via Robert how thrilling a unique mind can be and then suggests via Charles that such a mind is a truly terrible thing to waste.

Copyright ©2010 James Kendrick

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