Crumb

UPC: 715515061315

Studio: Criterion

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:null

Summary: So well-regarded was the documentary Crumb (1994) that the failure of it and of the same year's equally acclaimed Hoop Dreams (1994) to result in Oscar nominations caused a media furor which forced the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to revamp its documentary nomination process. Robert Crumb is a respected but controversial underground comic book artist and writer whose creations include the popular "Keep on Truckin'" and Fritz the Cat (1972). Crumb's adult subject matter includes weird sexual obsessions, social criticism, and personal, confessional observations about abnormal human psychology. The genesis and meaning of Crumb's work is explained through a series of interviews with his colleagues, former lovers, and especially family members, which reveal a horrific upbringing that has crippled both Crumb and his siblings -- but has also fueled the artist's groundbreaking work. A long-time friend of the film's subject, director Terry Zwigoff followed Crumb (1994) with another comic book-related project, Ghost World (2000), a drama based on a story from the anthology series "Eightball" by Daniel Clowes. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi

Category: Culture & Society

Awards: Best Documentary – Los Angeles Film Critics Association Best Documentary – Broadcast Film Critics Association Best Documentary – National Board of Review Best Picture (Runner-up) – National Society of Film Critics Best Documentary – National Society of Film Critics Best Documentary – New York Film Critics Circle Non-Fiction Camera Prize – Sundance Film Festival Best Documentary Feature – Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize - Documentary – Sundance Film Festival

Features: Two audio commentaries, one featuring Zwigoff, from 2010, and one with Zwigoff and critic Roger Ebert, from 2006
More than fifty minutes of unused footage
Stills gallery

Crumb

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 08/10/2010

Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Pre-1954 Standard

Runtime: 120 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Region: Blu-ray region A (North America, Central America, South America, Japan, Taiwan, North Korea, South Korea, Hong Kong, Southeast Asia)

Tom Wiener

Filmmaker Terry Zwigoff was able to make Crumb because of his friendship with the subject, but the film is definitely not hagiography. Because much of the artist's work is so personal, any study of Robert Crumb must take into account his prickly and decidedly randy personality. Zwigoff also had a great sense of timing, catching Crumb in a bit of a mid-life crisis, as he decamps from his longtime home in California to the south of France. The energy of the 1960s which fueled some of Crumb's most celebrated art has long ago dissipated, and when Crumb convincingly disavows being identified with that tumultuous time (he hates rock music, preferring to listen to his collection of blues music on original 78 rpm vinyl), you sense that he's a man who has been out of step all his life. Rather than merely depict the symptoms of Crumb's worried mind, Zwigoff includes enormously effective interview material with two of Robert's brothers (one of whom died after film was completed). Few filmmakers are allowed that kind of privileged look into their subjects' upbringing, and the brothers' recollections of their childhood and ruminations on their blighted lives suggest that art provided Robert with a reasonably effective way of dealing with past traumas. ~ Tom Wiener, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Robert Hughes  Actor 
Aline Kominsky  Actor 
Maxon Crumb  Actor 
Robert Crumb  Actor 
Charles Crumb  Actor 
Lianne Halfon  Executive Producer 
David Lynch  Producer 
Lynn O'Donnell  Producer 
Terry Zwigoff  Director 
Terry Zwigoff  Producer 
Albert Berger  Executive Producer 
Lawrence Wilkinson  Executive Producer 
David Boeddinghaus  Composer (Music Score) 

Country: USA