Love, Gilda is a documentary about Gilda Radner, who was a comedian best known for being in the original cast of Saturday Night Live. When I saw the preview, I immediately added it to my queue and knew that I would not see it in theaters. If the subject of a documentary is related to television, then I believe that the documentary may be better viewed on the small screen since it may not fare well in the transfer to the large screen. Of course there are exceptions such as Mister Rogers, but in this case, it was a correct assessment.
Also my mom was interested in seeing Love, Gilda, which was not a surprise, which meant that I would watch it at home. I literally grew up watching Saturday Night Live because of her. Also when you’re a New Yorker, you don’t have to watch Saturday Night Live to be aware of the performers presence. This documentary looked good enough to watch once, but repeat viewings not so much. It was entertaining, but it did not linger long after we finished watching it. A really great documentary feels emblematic of a period, a person and a place whereas this documentary felt like a standard biopic that could have aired on television.
Love, Gilda occasionally distinguished itself from other adequate documentaries. The one great aspect of subjects from later eras is that the subject is using audio and visual devices to record his or her life for posterity so if a filmmaker can get permission from the subject or his or her family, then the filmmaker is already starting at an advantage that past documentarians did not have. In addition, because Radner was an icon, and Lisa D’Apolito, the director, has access to Radner’s work, it can rest on the talent of its subject and keep viewers interested whereas films with drier subjects have to use other techniques to draw audiences in. So instead of feeling like you’re watching a movie about someone, it creates the illusion that the subject actually made the documentary and is sharing something exclusive with the viewer.
Love, Gilda also uses Radner’s high profile fans and friends to further attract audiences to the film. This technique works right now, but while I love Bill Hader, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Cicely Strong and Melissa McCarthy (what happened to Tina Fey) and understand why it makes sense to have them read Radner’s words because in many ways, they are her legacy, some literally and some figuratively, I don’t know if their appearances will resonate with viewers ten, twenty, thirty, etc. years from now. Any film, especially documentaries, needs to have a certain element of timelessness, and while a couple of those famous people will be remembered, will all of them? I’m willing to bet that Steve Jobs will be forgotten given enough time. To be fair, then Radner may be forgotten to, but it is the documentary’s job to make her memorable by showing how she surpassed and embodied her time, not resting on the praise of other temporarily famous people.
I don’t think that I’m the average viewer, but even with Love, Gilda’s privilege of access to Radner’s personal writings, I didn’t feel as if I learned anything beyond what I already knew. My memory may not be great, but I’m almost certain that I’ve seen television movies about her, and I know that I’ve read books about Saturday Night Live. (I’ve been meaning to read Gene Wilder’s memoirs, but have not gotten around to it.) It felt very well behaved and solemn, which isn’t a bad thing or necessarily a wrong choice, but by using a muted tone to represent someone like Radner feels like a mistake because another way to effectively depict someone is to convey how that person made you feel when he or she was alive.
Love, Gilda takes great pains to be serious, and while it didn’t have to be funny, it felt as if she brought all these dynamic people on screen just to put them in a library. The right tone was not to make it academic, but to aim for how the interviewees act when they’re in their off hours, not a memorial. If you’re going to use celebrities, the point is to feel as if you’re closer to them, and they’re in the room with you. You don’t want it to feel like a talk show because they’re not there to promote themselves, but you also don’t want each of them to adopt the same grave, respectful tone and not be themselves, which is what happens in this documentary. The documentary never shows the interviewer asking questions, but I would not be surprised if they were instinctually mirroring her tone. I don’t recall exactly where I heard this useful directing instruction, but when you ask actors to pretend to be a zombie, you don’t want to show them what you mean because then everyone will do the same thing as the instructor whereas you want everyone to look different so it will make it more interesting to watch. It is only a guess, but when she asked them to read Radner’s words, I think that she showed them what she wanted, and the interviewees sustained that tone throughout the entire process.
Love, Gilda reminded me of Kusama: Infinity in the way that it was very interested in teasing out what Radner’s version of feminism looked like. Unlike Kusama, Radner was more furtive and affable in her approach to carving out a space for herself, which probably explains her success, but I would love for a documentary about a successful pioneering woman to also examine whether or not she is cognizant of the civil war inside herself. To be successful, there is an element of compromise with and acceptance of the status quo while simultaneously undermining it. Radner is intriguing to me because while her career was outstanding, as an outside observer, the majority of her romantic relationships seemed like a disaster and in complete opposition to the way that she was able to subtlety advocate for herself in her career. There seemed to be a degree of self-abnegation when she navigated her relationships. This dynamic is actually not unusual for women so I wish that someone would explore it more when depicting notable women, but people say that fish don’t know that they’re in water.
If you’re an aspiring comedian or improv performer or a fan of Radner’s or Saturday Night Live, then you should definitely check out Love, Gilda, but I would not consider it must see viewing otherwise. It is entertaining and transitory so while you’ll enjoy watching it, I don’t think that it will stay with you long after it ends.