Previously, I have reviewed so-called minor films (but by no means of poor quality, quite the contrary...) by directors who went down in history for other films graced with critical and public success. And what I'm about to illustrate is yet another confirmation of this. Mentioning Bob Fosse, most people associate him with significant titles like "Cabaret" and "All That Jazz," but honestly, I don't know how many remember his uncomfortable film "Lenny," made in 1974. I used the adjective uncomfortable because the name in the title is that of Lenny Bruce, a famous comedian who in his lifetime greatly unsettled the conformists of America’s hypocritical and moralistic society. This cost him dearly for the success he garnered in his shows appreciated by liberal audiences. In a sense, he could be defined as a martyr of the just cause of freedom of expression and thought, not always respected in those years in the USA (he died of a heroin overdose in 1966).
Based on the eponymous play by Julian Barry from 1971, the film takes us through the rise of Lenny Bruce who, at his beginnings around 1951, did not capture the public's interest, who were bored and perplexed by some of his imitations of other comedians. But after joining an attractive stripper named Hot Honey Harlow, Lenny will gain more confidence on stage and begin to propose monologues on major themes such as racism, politics, religion, and sex, showcasing a sarcastic vein and an uninhibited language for the moral and social standards of the time. This style was driven by the belief that the repression of a word deemed offensive only served to give it violence. Therefore, if certain words like "negro," "pussy," "fuck" were repeated like tongue twisters, they would eventually be considered absolutely normal. Perhaps today this concept has been assimilated, but try to think of the consequent reaction in that America, between the '50s and '60s, very puritanical and with an ambivalent relationship, for example, with the theme of sex (a certain Hugh Hefner had created the first men’s magazine "Playboy" and was getting rich...).
It would only be a matter of time before the first obscenity charges and related arrests began to arrive (only in 2003 would these charges be dropped by decision of then-New York Governor George Pataki). As well represented in the film, in a cabaret show in 1961 Lenny would utter, among other terms, the word "cocksucking" (I imagine you know English well) and from there his legal troubles would start. Because, as Keith Richards once said, "once you're in trouble with the police, you're in trouble for life," and for Bruce, it would not be enough in the next show to replace the censored word with a phrase like "have you ever done a blah blah blah?". More arrests, charges, trials, from which he would emerge acquitted until a first conviction in 1964, and this significantly affected the quality of his monologues, in addition to dragging him into a spiral of debt to cover legal costs and a drug addiction that would cost him his life.
Filmed in technically impeccable black and white, "Lenny" pays homage to the father of stand-up comedy and sheds light on the prevailing hypocrisy in that America. Lenny Bruce never held back against many social distortions, like when he called it scandalous that while for a show in Las Vegas actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was paid $60,000, the average monthly salary of a teacher was only $6,000. Undoubtedly an indicator of an imbalance not only economic but also ethical.
And the charm of the film is furthered by the performances of Valerie Perrine in the (sometimes scanty) role of the stripper Harlow married to Lenny, and an amazing Dustin Hoffman. All of us remember his sublime performances in great films like "The Graduate," "Midnight Cowboy," "Marathon Man," but here his embodiment of the protagonist is so dazzling it leads one to believe that Lenny Bruce is back to life and still fighting to express himself freely without censorship. An always just and sacred battle, in a world like the current one where too many people in various nations are unjustly imprisoned for opinion crimes.
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