'Lorne' is Touching Yet Limited
There are many documentaries about what happens behind the scenes at Saturday Night Live, and this one is not anymore eye opening than the others. However, it might be the best. Lorne isn’t necessarily a bad film, just a been-there, done-that scenario. The subject himself is an enigma, refusing to reveal anything about his personal life. This challenge in documenting someone who’s closed off hurts the film since we’re getting more of a resume on Lorne Michael than an actual movie about the man. This results in a movie that doesn’t really give us any more information about Lorne Michaels than we already know, aside from a few details.
The picture starts with a clever title card. Michaels is asked what makes good comedy. He responds by comparing comedy to pornography. You know exactly what it is when you see it. The movie then cuts to a basic title in a simple font. No fancy motion graphics or anything like that. We then see the process of making the show. A bulletin board is displayed in the writer’s office, featuring a series of sketches. The host for the day then goes over which sketches they plan to include in the show. About an hour or less before the show, everyone does a dress rehearsal before filming.
It’s a chaotic yet effective process that has been working for decades. If the show were produced by anyone else, it would fail, as was the case when Don Ohlmeyer took Lorne Michaels’ place. Ohlmeyer decided to replace the comics with actors. This did not go over well, sending SNL to the tank until Michaels returned to fix the show back up again. A show can only work if the showrunner knows exactly what they’re doing. The failed 80s cast of SNL would have been interesting to hear more about. Unfortunately, it’s mostly a brushed-over side note. We don’t see interviews with almost any member of that cast, hearing from their perspective why the show crashed and burned. Instead, we mostly hear about why Lorne Michaels is so great and could never be replaced. We get that point early in the picture, yet we don’t go any further.
Some moments dive into Michael’s personal life. We know about the relationship he had with his father, and that Lorne wasn't present when his dad passed away. To find solace in between filming seasons of SNL, Michaels ventures out to a closed-off location in Maine. Michaels is notoriously quiet. His little place in Maine makes perfect sense, in line with his personality. It’s a quiet place one could go to find solace. That’s as far as the movie goes in revealing any personal details on its main subject. Which is a shame since there’s probably a lot of material, yet the director is constrained by the limited access that he’s given.
The other cast members reveal that Lorne intentionally changes details of his life on Wikipedia to distract people from his reality. Probably so he can protect his image. However, there seems to be no skeletons in Lorne’s closet. The other cast members interviewed, ranging from seasoned vets like Chevy Chase and Chris Rock to newcomers like Colin Jost and John Mulaney, reveal how Lorne thrives on chaos. Once you reach a certain level of exhaustion, your true creativity emerges from your subconscious, according to Michaels. That’s true; sadly, few can survive that rigorous schedule.
The picture is at its strongest when we hear how kind a human being Lorne Michael actually is. On the outside, he might seem disconnected. The man hardly laughs or cracks a smile. It’s well documented outside of this flick that if you can make Lorne laugh during a meeting, then you know you’ve hit a home run. Even if your sketch doesn’t make it on the show, after the deaths of cast members like John Belushi and Chris Farley, it may have helped shape some of Michael’s empathy. During one of the most revealing interview bits, John Mulaney speaks of how, when he was in his second stint at rehab, Lorne told him over the phone that he’d stay on as long as he liked and that they could talk about anything. That’s the type of showrunner you want to have. Someone who looks at their talent as people, not cattle.
Director Morgan Neville has a knack for making rose-colored biopics that are neither propagandistic nor overly sentimental. Won’t You Be My Neighbor (the documentary on Mr. Rogers) is one of the most tear-jerking, deeply affectionate films about a subject that came out right when Orange Hitler started tearing apart the world. His follow-up Piece by Piece about Pharrell Williams is a creative yet emotionally bankrupt doc that did feel like propoganda. Lorne is a slight return to form, focusing on a man whose work has touched many people. Unlike the Mr. Rogers doc, which did, in fact, reveal some not-so-great details about Mr. Rogers, this one omits them. The movie is very well cut with some great transitions, yet a little piece of soul is missing, thanks to Michaels being infamously cut off. Still, if you’re an SNL fan or just curious, Lorne is a moving flick that helps you understand the process and stand in awe of Lorne Michaels's many great accomplishments. It may not be a great documentary, but it is possibly the best one on SNL yet.
