Lucy and Desi is a documentary about the lives and careers of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Through archival footage, still images, audio recordings, and a few brief talking head interviews the movie unfolds in a rough but linear chronology.
Overall the movie maintains a determined pleasant tone and deliberately does not inspect anything that might be viewed as controversial. As such it plays a bit like an educational video for middle school theater students. It's great to see the wide ranging clips from Ball's considerable body of work, personal audio tapes of her(and Desi) presumably provided by the family are also insightful, or at least provide information unattainable anywhere else. But for the most part, the movie does not offer anything that couldn't be better digested by simply watching "I Love Lucy" or reading the subjects wiki.
What's more apparent are the gaps- Desi's infidelity and substance abuse, the marital tension Ball's super stardom resulted in(and Desi's resentment/jealousy there of), Ball's position(deliberate or not) as a feminist boundary breaker, her talent and style in and of itself, her legacy, the effect their work ethic/fame had on them and their family, their mental health, their familial situations and codependence etc. are all not investigated or are only mentioned or referred to in the most cursory of ways. Which in some ways is fine if that's the kind of movie you want to make put it on Nickelodeon or Disney, however, the astounding talent, influence, and life of Ball is complex and deserves a nuanced dimensional investigation. The movie does not ask, what can we learn, it says only, remember this?
There is an issue even with the title itself, bolstered up by the heavy-handed saccharine score, which in essence packages this as a love story and attempts to give equal weight to both parties. This is diminishing, naïve at best and (perhaps unwitting) patriarchal revisionism at worst. Not to minimize Arnaz's contribution or his struggle or his impact on "I Love Lucy" or the TV industry at large however Ball is the icon, she is the legend. If you want to make a documentary about Ball, make it about Ball she deserves it, if you want to make it about the two of them as they are inextricably linked that makes sense, but get into it- get into their difficult marriage, get into the sexism and racism they had to grapple with both within and without, personal and professional, get into the actual humanity and artistry, get to the Truth. Because that's what film is supposed to do.
Soft, agreeable, lacking perspective.
Currently streaming on Amazon.
Stream It.
No comments:
Post a Comment