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Very well executed

Memorable, crazy movie

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

I never got to see Lenny Bruce perform. Apparently, he broke the mold when it came to political and social commentary. He was down and dirty with social mores. But under all that was a depressed fragile man, a drug user, an alcoholic. He had trouble relating to his audiences and yet they adored him. So he was willing to put it out there while he lived in darkness. Dustin Hoffmann's performance is without peer. He manages to get the edginess into his delivery and be that person. The black and white allows us to not be distracted by colors that would take away our sensations. We follow Lenny Bruce as he fights for sanity amid a world where he has trouble seeing the upside.

The first time i've heard about Lenny Bruce, it was from my hero George Carlin and i must say right off the bat that i haven't heard or saw much material from Lenny before this film, (yeah i know, shame on me) but at least i didn't had any expectations whatsoever.Factual or not? Once again i couldn't care less, it was a great entertainment. If i want facts about an artist i'll read a biography or watch a documentary, i will certainly not document myself on somebody through Hollywood for obvious reasons, if you can't figure them out, get off my review right now...Great performances, great story, amazing cinematography and editing, i really loved that movie. The "interview style" approach was brilliant and the jazzy/black & white atmosphere was delightful. That one shot scene near the end is astonishing and very sad, that scene alone worth the movie.Censorship, obscenities, anti-conformism, power of words, drug abuse and freedom of speech could resume quite well this movie in my opinion; and it makes me realize that i can't _______ write whatever i _______ want (at least not here) even in 20 _______ 13 can you _______ believe that?!In one word: Entertaining....And ____ censorship!

Lenny (1974) **** (out of 4) Bob Fosse's masterpiece takes a look at the short life of comic Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) who would die at the age of forty but not before breaking down certain doors for future comics. The film follows his rise up through the ranks thanks in large part to the controversy that followed him due to the nature of his act. I've always felt that LENNY was one of the best movies of the decade and even after all these years it's still a very sharp, at times funny but mostly sad look at a man who deserved much better than he ever got. There's no doubt in my mind that the film was like the light shining from above on both Fosse and Hoffman as the two were perfectly meant to bring this film to the screen and boy do they really deliver. Fosse's style here wouldn't work with most directors but the way he uses it to get to the emotion and power in the story is quite amazing. The film jumps back and forth through different periods of Bruce's life and the way Fosse uses this to build up the subject is something interesting to watch. Just take a look at a rather innocent scene where Bruce talks his wife into having a threesome with another woman. Just look at how the silence is used and the impact this has for this scene. Hoffman gives one of his greatest performances here, which is saying quite a bit considering how great he was during this period of his career. I thought he really did a remarkable job at not copying the real Lenny Bruce but instead taking him and forming him into this character. I thought Hoffman really gave an incredibly powerful and emotional performance and especially as Bruce begins to crack due to the pressures of the courts and the drugs. Valerie Perrine is also excellent in her role of Bruce's drug addicted wife. The B&W cinematography is some of the greatest you're ever going to see. This is certainly one of the most beautiful films you're ever going to see and especially the way the lighting is even in the simplest scenes. LENNY often gets beaten up by some critics because it's not 100% accurate but I've yet to see any bio pic that is. To me this is clearly one of the best movies of the decade and features one of the greatest performances you're going to see.

It's a difficult movie to evaluate because it's so desperately sad in so many ways without being tragic.Basically it's the story of a night club comic who became famous and talked himself to death. Bruce took advantage of the Beatnik subculture of the late 1950s who had pushed against obscenity and tender sensibilities enough to leave the door ajar, and then he crashed in recklessly, too self involved to realize that there are times when it's a lot better for you and everyone you care about if you just shut the hell up, that preaching, like drugs, can turn into self indulgence.It's sad to see an essentially good-natured and well-intentioned man commit slow suicide. It's sad to watch someone throw away success with such little grace. And it's sad to know in retrospect that the director, Bob Fosse, identified so intensely with Bruce that the release of the movie was delayed for a long time while Fosse agonized over the editing.All that aside, the film has another problem. It all seems mighty dated, as if we were viewing these Big Social Issues through the wrong end of a telescope. I guess that's not the movie's fault. It was no small matter at the time. It's just that the movies and the internet are now awash in pornography and, far worse, in gory images of heads exploding and limbs being sawed off. Hearing the F bomb spoken in front of an audience of eager adults is nothing compared to having to sit through an example of torture porn like "Unthinkable." None of the difficulty can be attributed to the principal actors either. Dustin Hoffman is fine as he slowly morphs from the ambitious kid trying to please an audience in the Borscht Belt into a self-absorbed egomaniac with glittering eyes. And Valerie Perrine is believable as his despairing junkie wife. Fosse has wisely cast Jan Miner as the optimistic and permissive Jewish mother, instead of a stereotype. She chides him about his heroin use but claps him on the back after a successful and obscene show.Fosse's direction is sure enough. He knows what he wants to do and he does it with deliberation. There are, thank God, no dizzying, whirling camera movements, no instantaneous cuts, no sharp negative images, and no itchy electronic noise on the sound track, but mostly Miles Davis, early and late. Is there any way to resuscitate directors with that kind of style? Any way to shove the pendulum back to its former position? The structure of the film didn't exactly come from "Citizen Kane" but must have been influenced by it. Fosse was to use it again in "Star 80." There are a couple of heartbreaking moments in the film in which we watch Bruce humiliate himself by being drunk on stage and by being obstreperous in court. At any rate, they made me wince. He's so wrapped up in himself and the indignities visited on him that he can no longer take the role of the other. He doesn't know that an audience is there to be entertained, not to listen to him read aloud long sections from the trial transcript. He doesn't realize that when a sympathetic judge finally says, "Not another word," what the judge means is "not another word." Bruce's death may not have come at the worst time. He was pretty far gone, broke and inadequate to any further work. I watched an interview with him during his last year or two and he was falling all over himself and slurring his words -- worse than Truman Capote at his worst. And, having helped break the obscene sound barrier, what was there left for Bruce to do next? Invent a video game full of exploding heads?