Review of Lenny

Introduction

Lenny Bruce is a stand up comic. He works the clubs and bars, puts on his act for the crowd and at first he gets minimal applause, his jokes are bad and he gets no laughs. He has his eye on and meets up with a stripper from one of the bars named, Honey they start to see each other and eventually marry. Lenny`s exploration into freedom of speech gives him a controversial manner on stage joking and humouring Presidents, Popes, creed, religion and sexuality and making points about society, at present.

Lenny asks Honey to try out a double act with him, but after a car crash exiting a failed gig one night (because of Lenny`s crudity), Honey ends up hospitalised. Once she gets out they both move to California for a fresh start and to settle there little differences they`ve encountered along the way. The double act isn`t working out to well and so Honey gets back into stripping to try and help make ends meet, while Lenny goes from job to job. They get in with a showbiz style crowd, musicians etc and find themselves experimenting with drugs and sexual fantasies.

They both decide to have a child and maybe this will bring them closer together, but while Honey waits trial for a `pot` possession charge Lenny takes the child into custody, but actually removing the child from a drug dependant Mother. As Lenny`s career peaks he starts to bring in a lot more audiences, publicity and police. Some of the crowd he pulls in either walk out or is determined to shut him up for good. Lenny`s police warnings, arrests and bad publicity only make him provoke society more but treading more cautiously until he realises after losing his fortune he cannot win or beat the system.

Video

The movie is in a 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen format. Besides being shot entirely in black and white the contrasts between the shades are quite clear apart from having a lot of darker scenes included. Blacks are deep and bold bright areas glare through, it`s basically a clear black and white print like the old vintage movies on a Sunday afternoon, but with no grain or dropouts, a lot clearer and crisp round the edges.

The movie starts off on an interview shot with Honey, Lenny`s Wife. She is detailing Lenny`s life in stages and telling how she plays a part, Lenny`s Mother and Agent are also interviewed during the course of the movie and the visual style keeps flicking between Lenny`s life and these interviews. Sometimes the camera angle changes in the interview scenes from either straight on, side or long shot to keep it looking interesting. Sometimes the information given in the interview shots by the characters ties in with a certain gig Lenny is performing and matches what he is currently speaking about or what he has experienced himself.

The locations and sets are basic and not much variety included, the key scenes being the bars and clubs Lenny performs in, Hotel rooms, a hospital and some outside shots here and there. A location of interest is Lenny`s house he has when he is at his career peak; it includes a swimming pool, large rooms and his new car parks outside surrounded by some trees. There is also a couple of nudity shots featured but nothing too fancy.

Audio

The audio format is Dolby Digital mono 2.0 and is probably suitable for this movie that is mostly dialogue. Saying this, the dialogue throughout is quite clear and no distortion present for this older type of movie. Very plain and simple audio with no bass either. During one scene Honey upsettingly telephones Lenny her end of the call the audio is distorted unlike when Lenny speaks, could be a bad line? Either way it doesn`t sound on par as all the other dialogue.

Once again this movie is mostly dialogue only and even the music is a bit simple and mellow and is added just to accompany the starting and end credits and also a few of the scenes for added atmosphere and drama. The opening tune is a mellow type including guitar, strings and xylophone others shape into slow moving, `seedy club` styles using brass muted trumpet and hints of piano sometimes on the verge of jazz maybe?

Features

The start menu is a static background filtered in blue; Lenny stands in front of a microphone holding a paper of some sort. The title is centre, off right slightly. Options are play movie, scene selection; language options and original trailer, there are 16 chapters in the scene selection option. There is no animation or movie footage and no audio presentation whatsoever. Strange thing is the menu screens are the only time you see Lenny in colour while the movie is black and white, what a pity!

Conclusion

"Based on a true story", this is the only hook to the movie that made it interesting and kind of got my attention even the black and white visuals didn`t deter my enjoyment. The movie style was good and it let you see Lenny`s life from what he was like on and off stage and what others close to him thought about him too, this way it wasn`t going to be just endless shots and angles of a guy on stage.

The movie presented a couple of humorous scenes; memories of Lenny`s earlier career is told over a small family dinner after Lenny is married, it was quite funny watching Lenny provoking the `gran` character and everyone having a giggle. The trial of Lenny is amusing watching the jury and public laughing at audio evidence of one of Lenny`s performances when it supposed to be serious. Lenny is similar to an earlier version of `Chubby Brown` using obscene language and comments except in today`s society we accept it.