Crumb

Composite Score: 86.7

Featuring: Robert Crumb, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, Charles Crumb, Maxon Crumb, Robert Hughes, Dana Morgan, Bill Griffith, Deirdre English, Beatrice Crumb, and Dian Hanson

Director: Terry Zwigoff

Genres: Documentary, Biography, Comedy, Drama

MPAA Rating: R for graphic sex-related cartoons and for language

Box Office: $3.04 million worldwide

My take on Watching This Film:

                Crumb is Terry Zwigoff’s documentary about underground comic artist and writer Robert Crumb and his dysfunctional family. It takes a look at Crumb’s life from his childhood to his present (in the 1990s) and seeks to understand the circumstances that led to his rise to cult popularity even as his siblings struggled to make anything of their lives at all. It examines concepts of family trauma, sexual deviancy, and the public perception of art as it attempts to paint as clear a picture as possible of its subject and those around him. Crumb can ultimately be summed up as a look at a unique and off-putting examination of some truly repulsive but engrossing subjects that stands as one of the great documentaries because of its willingness to play in the space with its subjects rather than make judgements and attempt to shape them to the norms of a society that will never fully accept them. It’s an imperfect film about severely flawed human beings, but it’s one that you can’t quite ever look away from at the same time. If you’d like to watch it yourself, you can currently rent it on Apple or Amazon and make the judgement for yourself.