Post by anarchistemma on Mar 25, 2018 23:22:38 GMT
i’ve written an essay. i’d be pleased if you would take the time to read it.
i❤️JL
I’ve come late in life to Jerry Lewis. Certainly his films are a dim awareness from childhood television reruns, teen years spent watching a telethon or two, and verbal parental pride of his jewish pedigree. But i was not a fan, didn’t appreciate his films or comedy, was ambivalent in every way.
And then he died.
Surfing the internet for random obituaries, I came across an essay by Mark Simpson, (of ‘metrosexual’ fame), “Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin’s 50s Love Makes Today’s Bromance Look Like Bromide”, with the sentence, ‘the martin&lewis partnership was queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented’........WAIT, WHAT?? and down the rabbit hole I went, every Colgate Comedy Hour, every solo or partner film, every documentary, book, scholarly article, tumblr fan site or facebook page, boring and badgering friends with my new-found obsession. And what I discovered was an immensity of influence and legacy barely comprehensible in his near-century life.
I leave to cinema studies scholars to dissect his films, his directing, his mechanics of gags, and comedians to argue over his humor, love it or hate it. I am more interested in his overwhelming cultural significance.
Transitioning as a teen to the hierarchy of the nightclub circuit of the 1930’s and 40’s, that proving ground of make or break, rich with cigar smoke and mob ties, the fast, dark nightlife of booze and broads, where he made life-long loyalties to men better left unnamed. And the theater chains, Paramount, Capitol, Loews, of 8 shows a week, or 3 a night, or some other exhausting number, repeating and repeating his act until it was polished and shone bright, thought to be the epitome of a career.
Did I forget radio? No! That too. But radio was too old-style, too staid for his visual necessities, that elastic face, those gestures, the physicality. nightclubs led to the newest of mediums: TV. Yes, a pioneer here, a cultural phenomenon, out rating the kings-Berle and Sullivan, his live anarchy, character-breaking, prat-falling, 4th-wall-shredding, behind-the-scene revealing, and gender-bending, marking television forever unto SNL; making long-form sketch comedy ad-libs look easy and fun, while sporting black converse high-tops, a special delight to me, 25 years before The Ramones. In those early, wild, uncontrolled tv years of the Conformist 50’s he fostered in a rebellious youth culture, his uninhibited and radical movements an influence on Elvis (along with Martin’s singing style), and the admitted favorite of a future Beatle, John Lennon. Lewis, then only in his 20s, was the first to have Rock n Roll on tv, although it wasn’t quite called that yet, and during those McCarthy years, with congressional hearings fearing they led to juvenile delinquency, Lewis had his own line of comic books.
Almost to prove he could, he scored a gold record with ‘Rock-a-Bye’, famously sung by Al Jolson, who later gave Lewis the original sheet music. He broke the color barrier by openly claiming Sammy Davis as his bestie, featuring him on a tv special, southern affiliates be damned.
But the Hollywood films: a superstar of unparalleled fame and box office from 1949-1965, whose films made more than African Queen or On The Waterfront, and after 20 films for Paramount under the restrictive, stifling studio system, he was the transition to independent film-making. Pilloried and ridiculed for being an egomaniac control-freak, with the audacity to do it all: act, write, direct and produce his creativity and projects. commanding the then-highest paid contract and creative control, practically running his own studio, negotiating the future return of his negatives - yes, he understood syndication before it was a thing, unheard of! Now, of course, everyone makes their own films - on Hulu or wherever, it’s expected you write and market your own.
Meanwhile along the way mechanically inventive, developing the video assist, sound innovations, set innovations, art direction innovations, costume innovations, comedy innovations, crafting near avant-garde films exploring identity, the shallowness of pop culture, the cult of celebrity, the investigation of manufactured fame, and the alienation of the misfit. Europe, already in the know regarding the new field of Cinema Studies, was quick to appreciate, and that too became a joke, while America would need another generation to investigate his genius.
A founding member of the decadent, hedonist, ultra-hip heyday, and later populist decline, of the quintessential American Playground, Las Vegas. He opened casinos and played innumerable dates, even as Martin replaced him with three Rat-Packers, role-modeling swinging adultery and escapism from nuclear family responsibility in The Age of Hefner.
In the 70’s he was first to try and tackle the pain and taboo of the holocaust, when few dared to mention it, let alone attempt a film. Holocaust stories, now de facto, he was, and is still, reviled for the attempt. Years later his student Spielberg and Benigni would win Oscars . Later, when his film career lagged, he reinvented again, to the dizzying complex technical production of national telethons, the schmaltzy sentimentality of do-gooders but, lo!, the shrewdness of capitalizing on corporate philanthropy - you saw it here, first, folks. His two billion in fundraising helped, among other advances, make open heart surgery nearly routine.
Can we mention branding? Yes, as early as 1966 using his caricature logo in lieu of a signature. Decades before marketing became a business school degree, he was an industry, pushing out self-promotion documentaries and crafting his image and product. Dare I leave out Broadway, that uniquely American musical theater? In the 1990’s, once more the highest paid performer, selling out performances for three years starting at age 69, legitimizing himself to nay-sayers and thrilling fans for a touch of yester-year song and dance, hat and cane.
So we come to the legacy of legacy: influence over generations of comedians, the very partial list of those who claim his influence: Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Martin Short, to those who may not, but revered him nonetheless: Bruce, Seinfeld, Letterman, Belzer, Pryor, O’Brien, Fallon. Or, his once-chosen writers: Lear, Brooks and Cavett. Or directors: Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Allen, Landis, Bogdanovich, and New Wave auteur Godard. Relative newbie Mike Birbiglia uses Lewis’ book on filmmaking, an instructional on how to film comedy with timing and rhythm. Not to mention those merely in his orbit in a time in history, or who, like Seineld said ‘if you could do it, maybe i could too’. Carl Reiner said, ‘Mankind goes back to the first guy rubbing sticks together and making fire....in the world of comedy, that guy was Jerry Lewis.’
Finally, and most intriguing to me, as a second generation assimilated jew, Lewis paved the way for a new kind of (jewish) leading man. In post-WWII America, just as jews were assimilating into American society en masse, he mainstreamed a non-normative male ideal, the Talmudic ‘third gender’, bookish and sensitive, at odds with dominant cultural assertions of masculinity, aggression and swagger. This geeky, nerdy, sensitive man, able to show vulnerability and affection, won the girl with nonthreatening charm, not the forceful kiss or rakish seduction. In an early ‘60’s episode of ‘What’s My Line’, Lewis is asked if he is a romantic leading man and he faux shyly bows his head and demurs. (this gesture alone, case and point.) But his persona ushered in everyone from Woody Allen to David Steinberg, Dustin Hoffman to Paul Reiser, Paul Rudd to Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler to Seth Rogan, Jessie Eisenberg to Michael Cera. Out of 1930’s America where antisemites and the KKK marched in our streets, and fresh from the ashes of holocaust, no small feat.
And of course, as those besides myself have observed, all modern comedy ‘bromances’ or male pairings are ghosted by the affection, the charisma, the phenomenon, of Martin&Lewis, who wore his love for his partner on his sleeve until his dying day.
i❤️JL
I’ve come late in life to Jerry Lewis. Certainly his films are a dim awareness from childhood television reruns, teen years spent watching a telethon or two, and verbal parental pride of his jewish pedigree. But i was not a fan, didn’t appreciate his films or comedy, was ambivalent in every way.
And then he died.
Surfing the internet for random obituaries, I came across an essay by Mark Simpson, (of ‘metrosexual’ fame), “Jerry Lewis & Dean Martin’s 50s Love Makes Today’s Bromance Look Like Bromide”, with the sentence, ‘the martin&lewis partnership was queer punk rock before even rock and roll had been invented’........WAIT, WHAT?? and down the rabbit hole I went, every Colgate Comedy Hour, every solo or partner film, every documentary, book, scholarly article, tumblr fan site or facebook page, boring and badgering friends with my new-found obsession. And what I discovered was an immensity of influence and legacy barely comprehensible in his near-century life.
I leave to cinema studies scholars to dissect his films, his directing, his mechanics of gags, and comedians to argue over his humor, love it or hate it. I am more interested in his overwhelming cultural significance.
His life and career is 20th century american entertainment history personified:
Born in 1926 to vaudeville parents, he brought the immigrant success aspirations of yiddish theater, outsider ‘degenerate’ cabaret, and risque burlesque performance. the influence of silent film greats, Chaplin and Keaton, evident in his pantomime lip-synch beginnings. Not merely to be a comic but a full Showman, an Entertainer; or as The Simpsons Krusty The Clown (with another Lewis incarnation, professor Frink, aka Tthe Nutty Professor, voiced by Lewis fan Hank Azaria), would sing, “a little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants!”, and down the lineage as a borsht belt tummler, getting the laugh at any price, with yiddish inflection, tone and verbiage, quick wit, ad-libs, and irreverent lampooning of the dominant culture. Transitioning as a teen to the hierarchy of the nightclub circuit of the 1930’s and 40’s, that proving ground of make or break, rich with cigar smoke and mob ties, the fast, dark nightlife of booze and broads, where he made life-long loyalties to men better left unnamed. And the theater chains, Paramount, Capitol, Loews, of 8 shows a week, or 3 a night, or some other exhausting number, repeating and repeating his act until it was polished and shone bright, thought to be the epitome of a career.
Did I forget radio? No! That too. But radio was too old-style, too staid for his visual necessities, that elastic face, those gestures, the physicality. nightclubs led to the newest of mediums: TV. Yes, a pioneer here, a cultural phenomenon, out rating the kings-Berle and Sullivan, his live anarchy, character-breaking, prat-falling, 4th-wall-shredding, behind-the-scene revealing, and gender-bending, marking television forever unto SNL; making long-form sketch comedy ad-libs look easy and fun, while sporting black converse high-tops, a special delight to me, 25 years before The Ramones. In those early, wild, uncontrolled tv years of the Conformist 50’s he fostered in a rebellious youth culture, his uninhibited and radical movements an influence on Elvis (along with Martin’s singing style), and the admitted favorite of a future Beatle, John Lennon. Lewis, then only in his 20s, was the first to have Rock n Roll on tv, although it wasn’t quite called that yet, and during those McCarthy years, with congressional hearings fearing they led to juvenile delinquency, Lewis had his own line of comic books.
Almost to prove he could, he scored a gold record with ‘Rock-a-Bye’, famously sung by Al Jolson, who later gave Lewis the original sheet music. He broke the color barrier by openly claiming Sammy Davis as his bestie, featuring him on a tv special, southern affiliates be damned.
But the Hollywood films: a superstar of unparalleled fame and box office from 1949-1965, whose films made more than African Queen or On The Waterfront, and after 20 films for Paramount under the restrictive, stifling studio system, he was the transition to independent film-making. Pilloried and ridiculed for being an egomaniac control-freak, with the audacity to do it all: act, write, direct and produce his creativity and projects. commanding the then-highest paid contract and creative control, practically running his own studio, negotiating the future return of his negatives - yes, he understood syndication before it was a thing, unheard of! Now, of course, everyone makes their own films - on Hulu or wherever, it’s expected you write and market your own.
Meanwhile along the way mechanically inventive, developing the video assist, sound innovations, set innovations, art direction innovations, costume innovations, comedy innovations, crafting near avant-garde films exploring identity, the shallowness of pop culture, the cult of celebrity, the investigation of manufactured fame, and the alienation of the misfit. Europe, already in the know regarding the new field of Cinema Studies, was quick to appreciate, and that too became a joke, while America would need another generation to investigate his genius.
A founding member of the decadent, hedonist, ultra-hip heyday, and later populist decline, of the quintessential American Playground, Las Vegas. He opened casinos and played innumerable dates, even as Martin replaced him with three Rat-Packers, role-modeling swinging adultery and escapism from nuclear family responsibility in The Age of Hefner.
In the 70’s he was first to try and tackle the pain and taboo of the holocaust, when few dared to mention it, let alone attempt a film. Holocaust stories, now de facto, he was, and is still, reviled for the attempt. Years later his student Spielberg and Benigni would win Oscars . Later, when his film career lagged, he reinvented again, to the dizzying complex technical production of national telethons, the schmaltzy sentimentality of do-gooders but, lo!, the shrewdness of capitalizing on corporate philanthropy - you saw it here, first, folks. His two billion in fundraising helped, among other advances, make open heart surgery nearly routine.
Can we mention branding? Yes, as early as 1966 using his caricature logo in lieu of a signature. Decades before marketing became a business school degree, he was an industry, pushing out self-promotion documentaries and crafting his image and product. Dare I leave out Broadway, that uniquely American musical theater? In the 1990’s, once more the highest paid performer, selling out performances for three years starting at age 69, legitimizing himself to nay-sayers and thrilling fans for a touch of yester-year song and dance, hat and cane.
So we come to the legacy of legacy: influence over generations of comedians, the very partial list of those who claim his influence: Carol Burnett, Jim Carrey, Billy Crystal, Robin Williams, Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, Martin Short, to those who may not, but revered him nonetheless: Bruce, Seinfeld, Letterman, Belzer, Pryor, O’Brien, Fallon. Or, his once-chosen writers: Lear, Brooks and Cavett. Or directors: Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Allen, Landis, Bogdanovich, and New Wave auteur Godard. Relative newbie Mike Birbiglia uses Lewis’ book on filmmaking, an instructional on how to film comedy with timing and rhythm. Not to mention those merely in his orbit in a time in history, or who, like Seineld said ‘if you could do it, maybe i could too’. Carl Reiner said, ‘Mankind goes back to the first guy rubbing sticks together and making fire....in the world of comedy, that guy was Jerry Lewis.’
Finally, and most intriguing to me, as a second generation assimilated jew, Lewis paved the way for a new kind of (jewish) leading man. In post-WWII America, just as jews were assimilating into American society en masse, he mainstreamed a non-normative male ideal, the Talmudic ‘third gender’, bookish and sensitive, at odds with dominant cultural assertions of masculinity, aggression and swagger. This geeky, nerdy, sensitive man, able to show vulnerability and affection, won the girl with nonthreatening charm, not the forceful kiss or rakish seduction. In an early ‘60’s episode of ‘What’s My Line’, Lewis is asked if he is a romantic leading man and he faux shyly bows his head and demurs. (this gesture alone, case and point.) But his persona ushered in everyone from Woody Allen to David Steinberg, Dustin Hoffman to Paul Reiser, Paul Rudd to Ben Stiller, Adam Sandler to Seth Rogan, Jessie Eisenberg to Michael Cera. Out of 1930’s America where antisemites and the KKK marched in our streets, and fresh from the ashes of holocaust, no small feat.
And of course, as those besides myself have observed, all modern comedy ‘bromances’ or male pairings are ghosted by the affection, the charisma, the phenomenon, of Martin&Lewis, who wore his love for his partner on his sleeve until his dying day.