Saturday Night, 2024.
Directed by Jason Reitman.
Starring Gabriel LaBelle, Rachel Sennott, Cory Michael Smith, Ella Hunt, Dylan O’Brien, Emily Fairn, Matt Wood, Lamorne Morris, Kim Matula, Finn Wolfhard, Nicholas Braun, Cooper Hoffman, Andrew Barth Feldman, Kaia Gerber, Tommy Dewey, Willem Dafoe, Matthew Rhys, and J. K. Simmons.
SYNOPSIS:
Given Saturday Night’s lackluster box office returns, perhaps this was a movie that really only appealed to Gen Xers and younger Boomers, and we didn’t feel like seeing it in the theater. If you’re one of those folks, this one is worth checking out on home video, although the bonus features are lacking. And if you’re a member of a younger generation, maybe give this one a watch to better understand what your parents and grandparents are talking about.
My favorite example of a “based on true events” movie is probably Amadeus. My understanding is that Salieri was not actually intimidated by Mozart’s genius in real life, but framing the story of the famous composer that way was a brilliant technique because it really allowed the viewer to understand why Mozart was equal parts inspiring and infuriating.
And then we have a movie like last year’s Saturday Night, which purports to give us a glimpse into the chaos surrounding the live broadcast of the first episode in a series that has become an institution on TV. If you know anything about the history of the show, or just know how TV works in general, you’ll find this movie very frustrating.
However, I’d argue that this movie goes so far with its fictionalization of true events that it really should be seen as an “inspired by true events” story. Director Jason Reitman’s goal was clearly to encapsulate a lot of what happened in the days and weeks leading up to that first episode, as well as what happened during that inaugural season, and that’s really the lens to use when watching this film.
Featuring a very large ensemble cast, Saturday Night takes place over the 90 or so minutes before its first live network TV broadcast on October 11, 1975. Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle) enters the NBC building to oversee that first telecast and finds himself dealing with skeptical executives Dick Ebersol (Cooper Hoffman) and David Tebet (Willem Dafoe) and a show that’s in danger of not going on air, between half-finished sketches, temperamental writers and actors, coke-addled host George Carlin (Matthew Rhys), and more.
As I said, the events that unfold during the movie are very much “inspired by true events” for all kinds of reasons: no network exec would wait until literally the last second to decide what to air at 11:30; sketches wouldn’t be rehearsed and rewritten at the last minute; Michaels and a few cast members wouldn’t have left the building so close to air time; and so forth.
But, in the end, Saturday Night works for me because it’s meant to distill all of Lorne Michaels’ trials and tribulations in the early days of the show into a near-real-time narrative that puts on full display what he was up against back then. Despite Saturday Night Live’s status today as an institution, back then it was considered by many people to be the product of counter-culture gone awry and definitely not the type of humor viewers wanted to see.
For a kid like me cutting his teeth on Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy novels, however, Saturday Night Live was something fresh and invigorating. (Yeah, now it’s part of the status quo, so you can certainly argue that it’s ready to be taken down by a newcomer, but I have a feeling that it’s already had a bite taken out of it by many newcomers who have found audiences online, not on traditional network TV.)
And that’s what makes Saturday Night so much fun, even if not every impersonation is spot-on, although nearly all of them are, and no one should take it as the gospel truth of what happened that night. Try to view the film through that lens, folks.
This release of the film on Blu-ray features cover artwork from the movie poster that looks like an homage to MAD Magazine great Jack Davis, which seems perfect since that magazine was shaking up the print world at that time too. (Maybe Davis himself actually did the art; I’m not sure.)
Inside the package, you’ll find a code for a digital copy as well as a Blu-ray disc with the film and these bonus features:
• Audio commentary: Director and co-writer Jason Reitman is joined by his director of photography, Eric Steelberg, costume designer Danny Glicker, sound engineer Steve Morrow, and production designer Jess Gonchor as they discuss the film. Yes, the decision to not adhere to what really happened is addressed, and their comments make sense to me.
• The Making of the Movie of the Show that Almost Never Made It (16 minutes): This is the best we get in terms of a making-of here, and it’s only 16 minutes long. That’s better than nothing, of course, but I certainly came away from it wishing something longer had been created. (I know, the movie didn’t fare so well at the box office, so maybe the studio wants to see what the home video ROI looks like before investing in a more elaborate special edition.)
• Creating Comedy Icons (11 minutes): Finding the right people to play so many well-known comedians wasn’t easy, I’m sure, but for the most part, this film nails it, and this featurette takes a quick look at the process.
• The Look of Saturday Night (2 minutes): Blink and you’ll miss this one about the film’s cinematography.
- Super 8 from Studio 8H (5 minutes): These are soundless home movies set to music.
• John Batiste: Scoring Live (1 minute): The famous musician talks about the difficulty inherent in playing live.
Yeah, that’s a pretty cursory set of extras, so hopefully this one will be released again with a nice in-depth documentary, and maybe even the first episode of Saturday Night Live as a bonus feature. A fan can dream.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Brad Cook
