Review: Never too deep, 'Lorne' approaches the myth of a comedy sphinx known for inscrutability
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You know him by his imitators, the ones he hand-picked for the show he made.Arguably the greatest comedy impresario of the modern age, Lorne Michaels, the lip-pursing, imperiously droll Canadian who created “Saturday Night Live,” has curiously enough never seemed like documentary material — there’s always been a strange satisfaction in him remaining an aloof, besuited guru, getting older but seeming beyond mystery.
A well-timed impression always felt like enough.We’re laughing about someone we don’t know and there’s an odd purity in that.Oscar-winner Morgan Neville’s “Lorne” — made with the begrudging OK of its subject as part of the 50th season hoopla — is, therefore, a curious instance of not being all that successful at unraveling the man, yet remaining perfectly enjoyable as a conduit for bite-size chunks of insight from not-so-famous associates and ultra-famous friends.
It’s a well-meaning impression of a soul-searching documentary (and only an impression), but impressions can still be plenty entertaining.Neville hedges his bet by filling us in on Michaels’ spotlight apprehension, making his reticence a through line.Interviewees joke about how inscrutable he is, guess at aspects of his biography, and early on we hear Michaels’ belief that explaining humor is pointless.
Books Susan Morrison’s biography of Lorne Michaels is indispensable, especially for ‘SNL’ completists.But would we have wanted a Jedi of few words to suddenly dissect his many brilliant casting choices or rehash the impetus to conceive the show, when it’s been written about repeatedly and even turned into a feature? Thankfully “Lorne” grasps this and instead decides the best narrative is one of Michaels as a force of stability amid constant change: shielding “SNL” from irrelevance and invasive network overlords, turning his unknowability into a kind of totem-like...