Crumb (1994)

Director:

Terry Zwigoff

Release Date:

28 April 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary | Biography

Tagline:

Weird sex · Obsession · Comic books

Plot:

A cinematic portrait of the controversial comic book writer/artist and his traumatized family.

Plot Keywords:

Comic Book | Underground | Art | Satire | San Francisco California

Awards:

13 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Robert Crumb	...	Himself
Aline Kominsky	...	Herself (as Aline Crumb)
Charles Crumb	...	Himself
Maxon Crumb	...	Himself
Robert Hughes	...	Himself
Martin Muller	...	Himself
Don Donahue	...	Himself
Dana Morgan	...	Herself (as Dana Crumb)
Trina Robbins	...	Herself
Spain Rodriguez	...	Himself
Bill Griffith	...	Himself
Deirdre English	...	Herself
Peggy Orenstein	...	Herself
Beatrice Crumb	...	Herself
Kathy Goodell	...	Herself
Dian Hanson	...	Herself
Sophie Crumb	...	Herself
Jesse Crumb	...	Himself

Directed by
Terry Zwigoff

Produced by
Albert Berger	....	executive producer
Lianne Halfon	....	executive producer
Neal Halfon	....	co-producer
David Lynch	....	producer
Lynn O'Donnell	....	producer
Lawrence Wilkinson	....	executive producer
Terry Zwigoff	....	producer

Original Music by
David Boeddinghaus

Cinematography by
Maryse Alberti

Film Editing by
Victor Livingston

Sound Department
David Franklin Bergad	....	sound editor
Scott Breindel	....	sound
Sara Chin	....	assistant sound recordist
Chris Choy	....	assistant sound recordist
Curtis Choy	....	location sound recordist
Kyrsten Mate Comoglio	....	sound effects editor
Francesca Dodd	....	dialogue editor
Doug Dunderdale	....	assistant sound recordist
Michael Emery	....	assistant sound recordist
Marjorie L. Hagar	....	sound synchronisation
John Haptus	....	assistant sound recordist
Scott Levitin	....	dialogue editor
Steve Longstreth	....	assistant sound recordist
Wendy McLaughlin	....	sound synchronisation
Walter Murch	....	sound re-recording mixer
E. Jeane Putnam	....	dialogue editor
Patti Tauscher	....	sound synchronisation

Camera and Electrical Department
Joe Arcidiacono	....	assistant camera
Debbie Brubaker	....	assistant camera
Michael Chin	....	camera operator
Ray Day	....	camera operator
Tina Di Feliciantonio	....	assistant camera
Doug Dunderdale	....	assistant camera
Jon Else	....	camera operator
Ashley James	....	camera operator
Kyle Kibbe	....	camera operator
Hilary Morgan	....	assistant camera
Nancy Morita	....	camera operator
Steven Okazaki	....	assistant camera
Tomas Tucker	....	camera operator
Poly Veitzer	....	assistant camera
David Weissman	....	assistant camera
Mustapha Barat	....	camera operator: additional photography (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Helen Dersjant	....	assistant editor
Noëlle Penraat	....	negative cutter
Gene Zippo	....	color timer

Music Department
David Boeddinghaus	....	music arranger
James P. Johnson	....	composer: song "Harlem Strut"

Other crew
Melissa Axelrod	....	transcriptions
Eva Eilenberg	....	intern
Jim Kallet	....	edge-coding
John McCormick	....	supply boy
Sean O'Brien	....	production accountant
John Pierson	....	producer's representative
Andy Reichsman	....	location manager
Kippy Robinson	....	production assistant
Jane Schneider	....	intern
J. Michael Stremel	....	production assistant
Jay Tannenbaum	....	fundraising clip editor

Thanks
Charles Crumb	....	dedicatee
Joe Hutshing	....	thanks

Production Companies

• Superior Pictures

Distributors

• Columbia TriStar (DVD)
• Columbia TriStar (VHS)
• Films Transit International
• Haut et Court (France)
• Madman Entertainment (2004) (Australia) (DVD)
• Publifolha Vídeo (199?) (Brazil) (VHS)
• Sony Pictures Classics (1995) (USA)

MPAA:

Rated R for graphic sex-related cartoons, and for language.

Runtime:

119 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | France:U | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Superior Pictures

Trivia:

Media reports following the film said that Robert Crumb later told Terry Zwigoff that he hated the film. According to Zwigoff, however, this never happened and the two still speak on a regular basis.

Goofs:

Factual errors: "San Francisco" is misspelled in the closing titles. The caption reads: "Max Crumb still lives in San Francicsco".

Quotes:

Robert Crumb: When I - what was it - about five or six? - I was sexually attracted to Bugs Bunny. And I - I cut out this Bugs Bunny off the cover of a comic book and carried it around with me. Carried it around in my pocket and took it out and looked at it periodically...
[...]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Ghost World (2001)

Soundtrack:

Shake It and Break It

candid

Crumb takes a deeply personal look at 60's counterculture artist Robert Crumb. The film focuses upon three decades of Crumb's artwork to reconstruct his unhappy childhood, days with Zap Comix in the late 60's, `dark side' period and recent life. Interviews with him, his wife Aline, family and friends reveal the motives behind his astounding creativity. Crumb is sometimes hilarious, often depressing and always entertaining – a rare combination in a documentary film.

During childhood, Crumb and his brothers Charles and Maxon found solace from their tyrannical father in comic books and drawing cartoons. Crumb escaped the mental illness that ended both his brother's careers as artists (Charles was equally as talented), but otherwise had a perfectly miserable childhood and adolescence. Socially awkward, bullied at school and rejected by women, he decided in 1962 (at age 17) to take revenge upon society `by becoming a famous artist'.

In 1966, his chemically inspired `revelations of some seamy side of America's subconscious' caught the eye of a Haight Street publisher in San Francisco and Zap Comix was born. Zap was an outlet for his creative energy, which was rooted in his social difficulties. He was uninterested in money and once turned down a $100,000 contract – a huge sum of money in those days. Although identified with the hippie crowd, he could not relate to their culture: `My main motivation [for drawing] was to get some of that free love action'.

After a few years of fame, he retired from Zap to express the darker side of his nature. His later work frequently contained sadistic and violent themes and was sometimes labeled as pornography by friends and critics alike. Even Crumb isn't sure of his intent: `Maybe I should be locked up and my pencils taken away from me'.

Critic Robert Hughes says that in Crumb's world there are no heroes and `even the victims are comic' – ideas that don't jive with traditional American culture. But Crumb has always considered himself to be an outsider and enjoys the feeling of `being very removed or extremely separated from the rest of humanity and the world in general'. `Words fail me, pictures aren't much better' to describe his disgust with American consumerism. He now lives in France because its culture is `slightly less evil than the United States'.

The film is embarrassingly candid about unhappy details of Crumb's life, such as his brothers' mental illness, experiments with drugs and ambivalent attitudes towards women. Yet it is apparent that there is no misery or violence in this man – it's all on paper. (Rating: A)