On the one hand, an 80-minute documentary cramming in 40 years of Saturday Night Live (SNL) is bound to be a disappointment. There’s no way you can highlight everything. On the other, having 40 years’ worth of material and only 80 minutes to fill ensures the gag-writers and sketch comedians from Studio 8H will seem like the greatest heroes ever to walk the Earth. Director Bao Nguyen’s breezy, authorised hagiography shows how producer Lorne Michaels and his revolving staff kept their show fresh and reflective of the times. Appraising this programme in full is, in many ways, simply looking at smart people looking at the world around them. As such, Live From New York! is a nice macro view of our culture from a wash of specificity. Pull together moments, from Ralph Nader to Frank Zappa to Janet Reno to Sarah Palin and, yeah, eventually, you’ll get the picture. It’s fun to watch, but as a documentary, it’s pretty thin. The thesis is “this funny show is important” and it hammers you with examples until you relent. It’s DVD featurette as cinema writ large.
The show met with instant success in 1975, quickly making stars out of original cast members Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner, John Belushi, Garrett Morris, Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman and Jane Curtin (Bill Murray came later). The early days were loaded with drugs and bad behaviour, but none of that is reflected in this film. We just see the flameout after five years, the hiatus and eventual return of Lorne Michaels. Returning writers like Senator Al Franken have referred to themselves as Lorne-agains, but that’s not in this movie either. The non-Michaels years don’t really fit this narrative, so don’t expect too many clips of Eddie Murphy, Martin Short or Billy Crystal, who all worked on the show during Michaels’ absence. Julia Louis-Dreyfus, a representative from this era, contributes a bit of talking-head commentary, mostly to downplay these lesser years.
She’s also on hand to address the issue of SNL being a boy’s club. The verdict is: “maybe”. Others comment on whether SNL has a diversity problem. The conclusion is: “Well, a bit, but it’s not that bad”. Current cast member (and future Ghostbuster) Leslie Jones gets one of the few dramatic moments in the whole film, expressing just how empowering it is to light up the zeitgeist with one controversial moment.
There are also segments devoted to some of the more memorable moments – like Sinead O’Connor ripping up the Pope’s photo and Mayor Rudy Giuliani introducing the show after the 9/11 World Trade Center attack. It’s true that getting SNL back on the air was an important moment of normalcy in the middle of a frantic time, but this film perhaps pushes the significance of it a little bit too far.
Watching Live From New York! is a little like reading an internet listicle. “They left this out, but found room for that!” you may gripe. (Missing: the Coneheads, Ed Grimley, Stefon, nearly all the musical guests. Somehow, Leon Redbone made the final cut.) Something else you don’t see: any representation of the fact that so very many SNL sketches are not particularly good. Even during those early glory years. Oh, it’s a great show for internet recapping (and Andy Samberg smartly touches on this in an interview) but SNL survived for years simply because there wasn’t anything else to watch at that time slot. Still, Live From New York! captures some of the fun of putting this show on week by week. “We don’t go on because we’re ready, we go on because it’s 11.30,” Lorne Michaels says, partly as an excuse, but also revelling in the madcap music-hall nature of his life’s work. The show’s been on for 40 years, surely you can give it 80 minutes.
