Insulting a director making a documentary about you might not be the best decision. Then again, Chevy Chase has never been very diplomatic.
The comedian receives high criticism from the filmmaker Marina Zenovich I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Notairing Thursday on CNN. During their first meeting, he warns her that it won’t be easy to find her. He asks her why.
“You’re not bright enough, what’s that?” he answered.
That the exchange made the film says a lot about Zenovich and Chase, a gifted comedian who starred in classic 1970s and ’80s comedies like it. Fletch, Three Amigos, Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s A holiday franchise.
“He’s one of those people that everybody thinks they know,” Zenovich said. “He has a reputation that precedes him, and there’s something underneath that you want to get to. So it’s been a big challenge trying to get there.”
A complicated man
I’m Chevy Chase and You’re Not follows Chase’s life and career, from his dark childhood to the dawn Saturday Night Live then Hollywood, culminating in his dirty stint on the TV series Community. There are views given by Dan Aykroyd, Beverly D’Angelo, Goldie Hawn, Lorne Michaels, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Short, his wife, Jayni Chase, and three daughters, and his brother Ned.
A picture emerges of a sharp and often cut comedian who has a deep following but can rub other people the wrong way with blunt sloppiness. “I’m complicated and deep and I can get hurt easily,” she told the filmmaker.
The documentary shows footage of her film and TV career alongside home movies, cuddling a cat, playing the piano, playing chess, reading a fan letter – including a birthday card from Bill Clinton – and visiting a flower shop.
The film has the approval of a strong critic: Chase, himself. “It’s just like getting a massage. I think of it like this: I love getting a massage. Sometimes it hurts, but getting a massage is great,” the comedian told the Associated Press.
Information on a difficult childhood
The Chase is just the latest profile of two-time Emmy winner Zenovich, whose previous writing credits include Roman Polanski, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams and Lance Armstrong.
“I make films about these strange men,” he said. “I’m just fascinated by people and the way they behave and Chevy seems to fit into my work.”
Zenovich points to Chase’s early years to help explain how he became who he became. Chase, as a boy, was locked in a basement for days, beaten in the face and locked in a room as punishment by his father and mother.
“I think the whole key to Chevy is his childhood. I hate to use the word trauma, but I think he was traumatized,” he said. “Comedy is his way of dealing with it.”
Chase is famous for feuding with many comedians, including Community actor Joel McHale, It’s SNL actor John Belushi and Bill Murray, who had replaced him It’s SNL. He left Community following reports that he used a racist slur and directed insults at fellow star Donald Glover. He had a falling out with the show’s creator Dan Harmon, who was briefly fired.
“The old Chevy would make you laugh and put you down and there was a little wink in there, so you were in on the joke,” said writer and actor Alan Zweibel in the film. “Now it’s getting worse.”
The film claims that Chase’s darkness was exacerbated by his drug use. “In his mind, he doesn’t see that he has a bad heart,” said Zenovich, who interviewed Chase twice and then followed him for several days.
“The most interesting thing about Chevy is that he really wants to try to find himself. He wanted to go there, but something stopped him,” he said. “He goes somewhere, and something stops him.”
‘Just Hollywood stuff’
Chase, now 82, says he knows there’s a long list of people who look down on him, but insists he doesn’t care.
“It’s just Hollywood stuff,” he said. “It never really bothered me.”
The film taps into his short-lived TV talk show and his first and only season opener Saturday Night Live. He agreed and left It’s SNL it was a mistake and it shows how hurt he was to not be invited on stage when the show celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year.
The documentary also shows him enjoying the applause of the fans as he attends the latest show National Lampoon’s Christmas Holidayand it also reveals that her three daughters are smart, funny and sweet.
“I think what he really did was he was able to break that generational trauma,” Zenovich said. “I’m saying it again, I’m using the word. But that’s a nice gesture, isn’t it?”
