Acho
Posts: 3903
Joined: 3/10/2005
From: Dublin, Co. Ireland
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quote:
ORIGINAL: adzman:
I imagine there's hardly a fan of Bill Hicks alice who isn't appalled by this.
I think anyone who's a fan of any great stand up (and I count myself as one; comedy coming second to film in "stuff I like to watch") would be more than a little apprehensive about this project. Regardless of Crowe's potential casting (and there are problems enough with that), I just don't see this working as a film. When you have a great, extremely distinctive comedian like Hicks, the whole point of his fame and stature is his performance. As was pointed out by Marwood above, Hicks made his name on stage more than through any off-stage antics, unlike, say, Lenny Bruce, also referred to above. Even Mitch Hedburg would strike me as a better subject - while his comedy mightn't have been as influential (still funny), there's more of a story there (I'm not suggesting that that would be a good idea either though, no no no). Stand-up comedy is such a finely tuned art that a representation of it will either be off the mark, or just become mere impersonation - where's the artistic merit in that? Just go watch/listen to actual Bill Hicks footage.
To me, a comedian's jokes are their own, to be told and performed in the manner they see best (except when I try, and fail, to tell them right myself!). Somehow I don't have the same problem with a musical biopic (aside from ones that are…well….crap), but I've always seen comedy as intrinsically different. A comedian is on stage and it's him/her alone with nothing but the words they've written and how they tell them. With music, there are more elements involved (lyrics, performance, instruments, arrangements, backing vocals, etc) so that it's still possible to portray the essence of the song and performance even if the actor isn't a spot on impersonation, and the showmanship of it all lends itself better to film interpretation. The truly great comedians are great for a reason - there's that one performance where they completely nailed it. Crowe might feel he can develop an interesting story about Hicks, but what makes the story worth telling is his comedic performance and what he had to say on stage; and there's only one man who can do Hicks - Hicks.
(although Doug Stanhope is very good - go see him while he's in the area over the next few weeks!)
As for Crowe, I agree that he is too old. A part of what makes Hicks interesting is how young he started out. Crowe would be hard pushed to play the later years (being 12 years older now than Hicks when he died) let alone any of the earlier stuff. I checked the original source of the story in the Sydney Morning Herald, and it does sounds far from definite. It seems to be a project in development of Crowe's, early draft script stages and he's only a possible for the part. Nothing against Crowe, but I do hope this is one that doesn't come to pass.
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