Remembering Gene Wilder

Famous artists are a favorite subject for documentaries right now— probably because people love to watch them. And there are a lot of different ways to tell the story of someone’s life; the more famous they were, the more tools at the filmmaker’s fingertips.

Take, for instance, the new documentary “Remembering Gene Wilder,” a uniformly affectionate look at the life and work of the comic actor who died in 2016. (The film opens in theaters in New York on Friday, followed by a national expansion.) Though he did perform onstage, Wilder’s most memorable work was in films like“The Producers,” “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” “Young Frankenstein” and “Blazing Saddles.”

Clips from those films and many others are combined with reflections from many of Wilder’s friends and colleagues, including his frequent collaborator Mel Brooks, Alan Alda, Carol Kane,Richard Pryor’s daughter Rain Pryor and Wilder’s widow, Karen Boyer. Pictures from Wilder’s youth and home video round out a portrait of a man whom everyone describes as gentle, innocent,kind, more or less saintly — and, of course, absolutely hilarious.

There’s a danger to this kind of movie, in that viewers get the sense that they’re getting the whole story even though selection bias is inevitably at work. (“Remembering Gene Wilder” mentions only two of Wilder’s four wives, for instance, and judging from the 2018documentary “Love, Gilda” — about his third wife, the comedian Gilda Radner — there’s a great deal of story left untold.) But the filmmakers made the smart choice to weave narration from the audiobook of Wilder’s memoir into the narrative, drawing the audience closer by giving the sense that we’re hearing the story straight from him.

The lovely and loving documentary “Remembering Gene Wilder” is by no means a complete picture of the legendary comedic actor who died in 2016 at 83. But within the bounds of a fast-paced 90 or so minutes, director-editor Ron Frank and writer Glenn Kirschbaum enjoyably guide us through many highlights of Wilder’s career and personal life, vividly reaffirming why the azure-eyed, electric-haired performer was such a beloved star and persona.

Using a wealth of classic film clips, fine archival footage and photos, buoyant interviews with such Wilder friends and colleagues as Mel Brooks, Harry Connick Jr.,Alan Alda and Carol Kane, and stretches of gentle narration by Wilder himself (taken from the audio book of his 2005 memoir, “Kiss Me Like a Stranger”), the movie moves largely chronologically from his Milwaukee childhood to the end of his life, which was claimed by the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease.

Born Jerry Silberman into a Russian Jewish family, Wilder (he changed his name early in his acting career) was warned as a child never to argue with his heart-impaired mother because he “might kill her.” He turned instead to trying to make her laugh, which proves an ideal origin story for someone who would go on to regale audiences with his unique comic skills. Input from Wilder’s cousin, Rochelle Pierce,adds some insider perspective on the actor and his family.

The film jumps to Wilder’s first stage appearances and the one that would famously change his life: acting on Broadway in 1963’s “Mother Courage and her Children”with star Anne Bancroft. During the show’s run, she suggested her talented cast mate to her then-boyfriend, Mel Brooks, for a part in a wacky screenplay he wrote called“Springtime for Hitler.” Several years later, Brooks cast Wilder as neurotic accountant Leo Bloom in the satire retitled “The Producers.” A star — and one of the great movie partnerships — was born.

Peppered with warm, detailed memories from Brooks and backed with riotous snippets from the outrageous 1967 comedy, the doc tracks the creation of Wilder’s Oscar-nominated performance opposite the irrepressible Zero Mostel. Reminders of such loony moments as Wilder’s “blue blanket” meltdown underscore the actor’s unbridled genius.

Rounding out the Wilder-Brooks trifecta of comedy knockouts is coverage of their storied collaborations on two iconic 1974 releases: the western send-up “Blazing Saddles,” in which Wilder replaced Gig Young as the Waco Kid, and “Young Frankenstein,” the horror-comedy with Wilder (who co-wrote with Brooks) in the title role. An array of memorable film clips and making-of-anecdotes from Brooks and “Frankenstein” producer Michael Gruskoff, along with creative observations of Wilder (“When he got excited, he was a volcano,” recalls Brooks) make this part of the doc especially fun.

Wilder’s early supporting role in “Bonnie and Clyde,” his famed title portrayal in“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” his, er, sheepish turn in Woody Allen’s“Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex (*But Were Afraid to Ask),”forays into directing (“The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother,” “The World’s Greatest Lover”) and his screen pairings with another comedic giant, Richard Pryor (“Silver Streak,” “Stir Crazy,” “See No Evil, Hear No Evil”), also receive their closeups. (Pryor’s daughter, Rain, adds much to the discussion.)

The film’s attention to Wilder’s Judaism mainly involves his endearing role as aPolish rabbi traveling to San Francisco in the 1979 comic western “The Frisco Kid.”(Harrison Ford replaced, of all people, John Wayne, as a bank robber who befriends the rabbi.) Clips from the box-office failure show Wilder at his Yiddish-spouting,Hasidic-garbed best; veteran producer Mace Neufeld reminisces about theproduction and Wilder’s deft contributions.

Although the doc omits discussion of Wilder’s early romantic life, which included two failed marriages (he also had an adopted daughter from whom he became estranged),his last two, far happier marriages fill much of the film’s final half-hour.

Wilder’s fortuitous meeting of “Saturday Night Live” cast member Gilda Radner when they co-starred in the 1982 action-comedy “Hanky Panky” led the unlikely soulmates to wed and do two more big-screen pairings: “The Woman in Red” and“Haunted Honeymoon,” both scripted and directed by Wilder.

But as outlined by Wilder (via his audiobook narration and archival TV interview bits), as well as by Mel Brooks and Radner’s friends Alan and Robin Zweibel, tragedy intervened when Radner was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1986. She died in1989. Though the details of the Wilder-Radner union are more than familiar by now,their story, as retold here, remains deeply affecting.

Also touchingly portrayed is Wilder’s subsequent marriage to Karen Webb, a supervisor at the then-named New York League for the Hard of Hearing, with whom he first consulted in 1988 for his role as a deaf shop owner in “See No Evil, Hear No Evil.” They reunited after Radner’s death, began dating, wed in 1991 and lived together in Connecticut until Wilder died. His widow sheds plenty of heartfelt light on their seemingly idyllic relationship, during which time Wilder ultimately wound down his acting career and focused more on writing and painting. Then came his heartbreaking descent into dementia.

Completists may wish Frank and Kirschbaum covered Wilder’s 1990s-era acting jobs— a few last feature films, several TV movies, a short-lived sitcom — and better explored his choice to retire from acting. However, his last on-screen appearance, an Emmy-winning guest role on TV’s “Will & Grace,” is featured, along with amusing clips from the show and glowing words from series star Eric McCormack.

worthy reminder of how much he’s missed.

BY CHARLES BRAMESCO

Generations of viewers first got to know Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, and with a new documentary about the beloved actor, director Ron Frank argues that that’s as good a place to start as any.

The twinkling strains of Pure Imagination open the affectionately wrought Remembering Gene Wilder, transporting the audience back into fond memories of the candyman’s immortal introduction: he hobbles out to meet his adoring public with cane in hand, staggers a bit, starts to stumble, then somersaults himself into a sprightly upright stance. Like  so many of Wilder’s finest moments, it was a surprise to his scene partners proving his nimble versatility as performer. He could mine humor from tension, aggravation or anxiety, but his desire to keep the public on their toes always gave way to a welcoming friendliness in his art as in his life.

In surveying the broad strokes of Wilder’s biography, however, Frank’s film acknowledges that his brilliance often posed challenges for which America wasn’t always ready. The spiky take on Roald Dahl’s famed chocolatier enchanted Roger Ebert, whose four-star review declared the adaptation the finest kids’ picture since The Wizard of Oz. But parents bristled at this Wonka, a mercurial oddball delighting in bad things happening to bad apples. “When [Willy Wonka] came out in the 70s, they thought that what itdid to children – and Gene outlined this in his own book – was cruel,” Franktells the Guardian from his home in Connecticut. “One kid disappears in achocolate tube, another one blows up, one shrinks down. Mothers thought itwasn’t good for their children, and it died in the box office. It was only revived with the home video sales.”

In ways that weren’t always comfortable for the public to accept, the antic and serious coexisted in uneasy cooperation in the work of Wilder, starting from childhood. He often repeated a boyhood memory in which a doctor informed him that with his mother’s heart condition, he had to make her laugh instead of making her angry, or she could drop dead. Wilder grew up under the premise that comedy and pain were close cousins, evident in the development of a screen persona constantly teetering on the brink of a breakdown. (“He was good as the ‘Why is this happening to me?’ guy,” Frank says.) Family stoked his passions along with his nerves, as Wilder set a trackf or the footlights of New York to follow his sister. “The first time he saw his sister act, he was 11 years old, she was onstage doing a solo act,” Frank says.“The lights went down, the audience applauded, she commanded the stage,and Gene was swept away by it all. He was overcome with emotion and saw himself up there, too.”

He entered the entertainment biz just as the hilarity of neurosis was breaking out of Borscht Belt standup stages and into the mainstream, his combination of shtick and personal dysfunction a hit with an America dipping its toe into therapy and pop-psych. After cutting his teeth on and off Broadway, he landed his first film role in Bonnie and Clyde as a hostage who develops Stockholm syndrome in record time before his captors give him the heave-ho; he played a doctor wrapped up in amour fou with a sheep for nebbish extraordinaire Woody Allen in Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask). At the same time, beneath the mania, “he had a very sincere gentle quality”, Frank says.

Wilder got to show off both sides to himself with his name-making role in The Producers, the first collaboration with frequent director and life long friend Mel Brooks. Frank structures his film with Wilder as narrator,providing voice over from beyond the grave via the audiobook of his memoir. “I did not want to see another interview-type film with Gene,” he says. “He died in 2016, so we didn’t even have that option. We let him tell his own story, first-person.” In one such anecdote, the Embassy Pictures head, Joseph Levine, ordered Brooks to fire Wilder, who had been deemed off-putting and insufficiently famous. “You bet”, replied Brooks, only to continue shooting with Wilder until they had so much footage, it would’ve been impossible to start over. “That’s how Mel worked,” Frank laughs. “He would listen to producers, nod in agreement, and then not do anything they said.”

In addition to sharing a great love of French wines, Wilder and Brooks gave the world some of the most indelible comedies defining a bawdy, subversive era. Young Frankenstein – thrown together by Wilder’s agent, casting his only three clients in the lead roles – allowed both men to indulge their love ofold Hollywood by meticulously recreating it, the studio suits persuaded to allow black-and-white cinematography. Blazing Saddles gestured to a different sector of the past while looking forward, its satire on race relations and the western using now-outmoded language to put forth progressive ideas about prejudice. “I get asked a lot if Blazing Saddles could be made today,” Frank says. “I think it depends more on who the audience is. Some tastes and sensitivities are so different now, that even though it pokes fun atracism, there’s a risk that it might not be seen that way.” ...

“When we talked to Alan Alda, he shared a story about worrying before one of the films he directed came out, what the critics might say,” Frank recalls. “He was commiserating with Gene, who told him, ‘What difference will it make? If they pan the film, so what? Big deal! You made it, it’s finished, it’s over. Be proud of it.’ He shared that comfort with him. Gene knew how to live life well.”