I was like nine years old and my parents had
some people over for dinner one evening, and after dinner my
mom told me to go off and play with these people's daughter
who was about my same age. No problem, so I take her up
to me and my older brother's bedroom, flip through some albums
and see my brother had absconded with my dad's copy of Richard
Pryor's 'That Niggers Crazy'. Shoot, why not listen to
that? That's some stuff that a pair of nine year olds
should totally be listening to. Of course my parents
heard the sounds of that foul-mouthed bastard coming out of
the room and brutally put a stop to all of that, but the thing
is we always listened to that foul mouthed bastard in our
house, my parents just failed to tell nine year old Chris that
their liberal Freedom of Information policies didn't apply to
everybody who came into the house. So I got in trouble
for nothing! At the time I blamed Richard for that ass
whooping but over the years me and Richard came to an
understanding, and by the time he set himself on fire, we had
totally forgiven him, because it wasn't his fault, now was
it? Then he made The Toy. And Brewsters
Millions. And Moving. And Superman III. And
Critical Condition. And See no Evil Hear no Evil.
I would throw 'Another You' in there too but I never saw
that. Oh Richard… what did I ever do to you?
Regardless of all of that, Richard Pryor left this Earth late
in 2005 and director Marina Zenovich has taken on the task of
investigating the life of Richard Pryor in Showtime
Televisions biographical documentary 'Richard Pryor: Omit the
Logic'.
Zenovich's film starts off in smashing fashion, with a few
choice clips of Pryor on stage from what I believe is the
concert film 'Live and Smoking'. It's a good start
because it's some funny stuff and it gives the uninitiated
just a hint at why the subsequent talking heads are about to
lay so much praise on this man, and also gives those who
might've forgotten a quick refresher on why this cat is
considered such a freaking legend. Then the director
cuts to some archival news footage of the day after Pryor set
himself on fire and then the film gets started.
Zenovich presents us with a very
straightforward affair as various living legends such as Robin
Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, and Bob Newhart among others
discuss the man they knew, and how he influenced their
careers. Then she takes us to the early days of his
career, showing us grainy black and white footage of the comic
on the Ed Sullivan show, footage which truly wasn't all that
funny, but this was before Richard Pryor became Richard
Pryor. This was when Richard Pryor was attempting to be
Bill Cosby. It makes sense because Mr. Cosby was hugely
successful back then and he was that incredibly rare African
American with his own TV show. Sure, he was playing
second fiddle to Robert Culp, but he was a Black guy on
TV. I'm told you did not see that back in the
sixties. Or in the 2000's. But that's another
story for another time.
While watching Robin Williams and Mike Epps and Whoopi speak
was fun, most of the real insight came from people intimately
associated with the man such one of his ex-wives… he had seven
I think… one of his girlfriends… this number we can't count,
his agent, his lawyer, his friends… these are the people that
were able to provide the most insight into what might've been
going inside the head of Mr. Pryor. Not that the man was
shy or held back or kept secrets, I mean a large part of his
comedy was basically Richard Pryor bearing his soul, but there
were things going on inside the soul of Richard Pryor that I'm
sure he couldn't even understand.
Thusly, considering Richard Pryor's life was pretty much an
open book, the main subject of almost the vast majority of his
comedy routines, not to mention his semi-autobiographical film
'Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling', I have to admit that the
director didn't tell me a whole lot of stuff that I wasn't
already aware of. Marina Zenovich has more than enough
filmmaking skill to arrange these familiar elements in a
storytelling style that still made this film very
entertaining, it's just that for me personally, it wasn't very
insightful.
Now to the contrary, I had my son watch this movie with me,
inappropriate content and all, because as I informed him this
is part of history and he should be aware of it. To that
end, the movie was very effective as a documentary as he was
almost completely unaware of the trials and tribulation of
Richard Pryor beyond 'The Richard Pryor Show' DVD's from his
variety show back in the 70's that we have in the house, and
the fact that his grandfather's favorite movie of all time is
'Harlem Nights'. I know, right? But with that
being said and my son receiving a Richard Pryor primer from
this movie, I was still left explaining a few things further
as the movie largely only scratched surface issues in the life
of the famed comedian.
Admittedly, there were a few things I was unaware of, like I
didn't know that Richard Pryor and Pam Grier were engaged…
proof positive he was on that stuff that he found a way to
mess that up… and I also didn't realize that the concert film
'Live on the Sunset Strip' was actually the second take as the
first attempt the night before was an utter failure.
Still, at the end of the day 'Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic'
was a very well done documentary. Logically organized,
balanced in its presentation, and easy to digest. Not a
lot of depth perhaps, but still a good watch.
