Making a movie about famous funny people: super hard. Audiences spend half the time watching it performing stupid checklist tricks in their minds. (Is the nose right? Did that really happen? Wasn’t the real person taller? Sexier? More talented?) It’s no way to give any docudrama, or docu-comedy, a fair shake.
Backstage stories about those famous funny people: even harder. Capturing the personalities and the vibe behind the fingers-crossed launch of an extraordinarily influential TV phenomenon has — as Desi Arnaz used to scold Lucille Ball on “I Love Lucy,” in earlier show business era — a lot of explaining to do, and deciding. Do we make it inside-baseball for comedy nerds, or more of a general-interest thing to win over new fans while satisfying the pre-sold ones? Aim for relative fidelity to the historical record, or chase the spirit but not the letter, for example, of the 90-odd minutes preceding the first live episode of NBC’s “Saturday Night” on Oct.
11, 1975? “Saturday Night” is about those 90-odd minutes. It has its moments, and some effective performances. But it’s all moments, really, without much momentum until the final stretch before showtime.
As for the truth quotient, well, some of it happened, some of it didn’t; some of it happened but not this way; and too many essentially factual bits feel hoked-up and made-up, with a coating of smugness about putting one over on the squares. I’m all for putting one over on the squares, and always .
