These allow us right inside Crumb’s weird head and provide an extraordinary level of insight. His drawings lay bare his soul and every story from his life is literally illustrated with a cartoon strip. He himself admits hostility towards women, laughing “I hate them a little bit less now.” But we’re not invited to like the man, we’re simply invited to understand him.Ī common criticism of documentaries is that they barely scratch the surface of their subject, an accusation which can certainly not be levelled against Crumb. Zwigoff uses Crumb’s art as a means of exploring his psyche, which is probably quite easy given the explicit nature of the work.

It’s often said that a good documentary is balanced, and on that front Crumb succeeds by giving a voice to the artist’s detractors who criticise his work from a feminist perspective. It’s great to watch him work – he draws ceaselessly, sitting in public and studying human behaviour like an alien investigating our species. After a drug-induced artistic awakening, Crumb began to employ a stream-of-consciousness approach to his drawing, resulting in his weird, disturbing and controversial style. They’re a bizarre combination of angry satire, graphic sex and warped obsession that seem to pour out of the darkest corners of Crumb’s mind without giving him much of a choice. Director Terry Zwigoff seems to know the perfect questions to elicit incredibly honest and detailed responses from the eccentric figure.Įither that or he’s just a ruthlessly honest man, which seems more likely when one sees his drawings. Often cited as one of the best documentaries ever made, 1994’s Crumb is a portrait of underground cartoonist, artist and musician Robert Crumb and his family.īeing something of a philistine, I’d never heard of Robert Crumb, but like all good documentaries Crumb requires no prior knowledge of its subject.

Maxon crumb 2016