• archives
• login

“American: The Bill Hicks’ Story”

By Lorraine LoBianco

“American: The Bill Hicks’ Story” (2009) directed by Matt Harlock and Paul Thomas

Photo-animated feature documentary, uniquely narrated by the 10 people who knew Bill best.
Directors: Matt Harlock, Paul Thomas
Stars: Kevin Booth, John Farneti and Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks, who died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 32, was considered a “confrontational comedian.”  Hicks was certainly a button-pusher, taking on hypocrisy, oppressive governments, the cult of celebrity, fundamentalist religions, and the watering-down of rock-n-roll to soulless, gutless, corporate-manufactured junk (Hicks, no doubt, would have used a stronger and more accurate word).

• His comedy is certainly timely in 2011, but Bill Hicks died in 1994.
  According to his mother, Hicks was always “different...we should have known [he’d be a comedian]”.  His best friend, Dwight Slade, said that even as a kid, he wanted to do stand-up comedy like Woody Allen.  He’d listen to Allen’s records and read books about other comedians, like Charlie Chaplin.  It was what he wanted to be.  At 14, Slade and Hicks snuck out of the house, and with the help of a 14-year-old friend with a rural driver’s license, secretly appeared in Houston comedy clubs in the mid-1970s.  Until their parents found out.
• 
  While still a teenager, he showed up at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles with a baby-face, a bad haircut, and a suitcase, saying, “I’m here to be a comedian.”  In very little time, his name was added to the outside of the Comedy Store, alongside those of Richard Pryor and Billy Crystal. Said one friend, “He was too good for fame not to find him, no matter how many corners it had to go around.”
• 
  Unfortunately, he wasn’t receiving enough stage time in Los Angeles and after a couple of years, returned to Houston, where he really made his mark. Jay Leno discovered him and recommended him to David Letterman, who would put Hicks on his show several times. Hicks was building a strong career but it was threatened when he discovered booze and drugs.  In 1988, unlike many comedians, he managed to get sober and stay sober, and his career took off again.
  With sobriety came a transformation in his comedy from the general to political, “When people walked out of his shows, they may not have admitted it, but they were changed just a bit.”  The problem was, as a friend put it, “as Bill evolved as a comedian, the comedy clubs were devolving.”  Despite being asked by Rodney Dangerfield to appear on his HBO special (where he was well received), Hicks was still stuck in the middle and looking to break out. The problem was, his evolution outpaced that of his audience. 
• 
  In 1991, he went to “Just for Laughs” (the comedy equivalent of the Cannes Film Festival) in Canada and found that audiences outside the United States were more receptive to his comedy.  When that show was aired in Britain, he got his breakout moment.  Hicks toured the UK to large and appreciative audiences and his self-confidence soared.  
  And then he returned to the States.
• 
  The way he explained it from the stage was, “The last show I played – you’re not going to believe this but it’s true – Belfast, Ireland. I’d never been to Belfast.  Played to 900 screaming, adoring fans at a turn-of-the-century theater that Oscar Wilde performed on, only to come back to America, to a country I toured ceaselessly for 15 years, to play ‘Adolph’s Comedy Bunker’ in Idaho in front of 25 apathetic people – strangers, one and all – who stared at me like a dog who’s just been shown a card trick.  One of life’s little ironies.”
• 
  Although he was still not a household name, the attention he’d received in the UK helped Hicks get his own HBO special, “Revelations” (1993).   Things were definitely looking up; he was healthy, he was sober, and he’d even stopped smoking.  Then life revealed another of its little ironies.  He fell ill while touring, and was given the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He went home to Texas and his parents, and continued to work while receiving treatment.  He even kept the cancer a secret from his best friends.  He thought he’d beat it.
  
• Despite the illness, Bill Hicks got another spot on the “The David Letterman Show,” in October 1993.  This appearance has been a source of controversy for years.  After the show, he received a call from Letterman’s producers telling him that his bit had been cut.  It was decided the act was too controversial, despite having already been cleared in advance by the producers and well received by the audience.  Hicks was devastated and decided that he was through with television.  TV executives, he said, wanted him to be someone he wasn’t. (In
• February 2009, David Letterman invited Bill Hicks’ mother, Mary, on the show and formally apologized to her and to Bill for the cut.  Letterman said that the exclusion “said more about [Letterman] than it did Bill,” and admitted that there was nothing wrong with his act.  Letterman then played Hicks’ performance in its entirety.)
  Things started to go downhill after the “Letterman” fiasco.  By the time he appeared on the show, Hicks knew that he was dying, and began to make vague jokes on stage about quitting comedy.  Around his friends, who were still unaware of his illness, he would make seemingly off-handed allusions to the end.  When they brought up his future, he was silent.  So, feeling he had nothing left to lose, he began let it out on-stage, with some of his confrontations with hecklers becoming near-violent.  There was no more fear, but a lot of anger.  He was going to speak from his heart, whether it was funny or not.
  
• Near the end, he finally told his friends he was dying.  He said he felt that he’d been played the biggest joke of all.  Here he was, a comedian with a new HBO special under his belt.  He’d finally started to get somewhere in his home country, and now he was given a death sentence.
  
• Now, too ill to perform, Hicks returned to his parents’ house, where he spent his last days with them reading, taking walks, telling them about his life, and getting to know his parents as people.  He was surprised at how open minded they were, despite their Southern Baptist background.  Right before he lost the ability to communicate, Bill Hicks wrote a final message, “I left in love, in laughter, and in truth, and wherever truth, love, and laughter abide, I am there in spirit.”
  “American: The Bill Hicks Story” is an unusual documentary.  Rather than the standard formula of narration with talking heads, still photographs with captions, and film clips, Harlock and Thomas utilize 3-D animation to create movement from old photographs of Hicks, his friends, and various locations; essentially animating his life as though they’d been there to record it. The result is half-cartoon, half-documentary, which is interesting, visually, and certainly keeps the narrative moving.  However, it isn’t always clear who is speaking the voice-over or when certain events occurred.
• 
  Harlock and Thomas were given access to and had the full cooperation of Hicks’ family and his closest friends, who provided home movies and films Hicks made as a teenager.  Their memories make up the narrative of the film, and yet for all this, we never get a sense of who Bill Hicks was.  We learn about his career, but as a man, he remains a mystery.  His life was essentially a solitary one, being on the road for a good part of it, but he did manage to have significant relationships with women, and was engaged at the time of his death.  However, none of these women are interviewed or mentioned by name.  Hicks himself was interviewed several times (and these can be seen on YouTube), yet this footage is not used.  Perhaps the filmmakers wanted the audience to find the man in the performance.
  Despite the film being about a comedian, “American” is not a particularly funny film, except for clips from Hicks’ stand-up.  It is, however, a very loving and moving tribute to man who had a lot to say.  Sadly, he didn’t have enough time to say it to people who weren’t ready to hear him.  Ironically, Bill Hicks is more popular now than when he was alive.  He is constantly being discovered by new audiences on YouTube or Netflix and comedians are always citing him as their inspiration.  Several well-known comedians have been accused of stealing his act, one, in particular, almost verbatim.
  As odd as it may sound, while watching Bill Hicks now, seventeen years after his death, it’s hard to believe that he’s dead.  The viewer is struck by how contemporary he seems and how sad it is, not just the fact that he’s gone, but of how little things have changed since then.

“American: The Bill Hicks’ Story” is available as Video On Demand at: Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox, AT&T, Charter, Verizon, Apple iTunes, and Amazon VOD.  It is also currently playing in select theaters across the United States and Canada in very limited engagements:

• 
  Austin TX – April 22nd Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
• Houston TX – April 22nd Alamo Drafthouse West Oaks
• Dallas TX – April 22nd Texas Theater
• Portland ME – April 27th (only) Space Gallery
• Chicago IL – April 29th Gene Siskel Theater  
• Phoenix AZ – April 30th (only) Madcap Theater
• Nashville TN – May 4th & 5th Belcourt Theater
• Detroit MI – May 6th Burton Theater
• Duluth MN – May 6th Zinema 2
• Gloucester MA – May 24th Cape Ann Cinema
• Denver CO – June 3rd – Denver Film Centre/Colfax
• Tucson AZ – June 3rd – The Loft Cinema
• Albuquerque – June 8th – Guild Cinema
• San Jose and San Francisco dates soon, and coming to all major US cities
   
• Upcoming Canada screenings:
  Ottawa – April 22nd Mayfair Theatre
• Calgary – April 22nd Uptown Stage & Screen
• Vancouver – April 29th Vancity Theatre
  Edmonton – April 29th Metro Cinema, Citadel Theatre

For more information, go to http://www.americanthemovie.com/

Write a comment

Name:
Email:
Subject:
Comment: *

Help prevent spam - enter security code above:
 

© Copyright 2007 - 05/19/2012 Media Q. All rights reserved.