On Joan Rivers, 1933-2014
So much of what I recall and appreciate about Joan Rivers exists in my review of the 2010 documentary “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work.” If you haven’t seen it, please seek it out. I’m sure it’s streamable in any number of formats at this point. It’s enlightening and entertaining and does what this sort of biography should do: surprise you about a famous person you thought you knew so well.
What struck me about Rivers was her complexity, “the jumble of contradictions” that made her who she was, as I put it. Here was a woman who had reinvented herself and endured as a bona fide brand, someone who had managed to remain classic yet totally modern after decades in a brutal industry, yet she was constantly scrapping for that next gig. Here was a woman who wouldn’t think twice about tearing apart any self-serious celebrity in spectacular fashion, yet she was needy herself and desperate for adoration.
Anyway, it’s all below. Her death today in New York after complications from surgery is a huge loss for show business in general and comedy in particular, but she leaves a tremendous legacy for us to enjoy, both through her own work as well as her pioneering influence on other great female comics. So funny. So fearless. She will survive.
“Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work”
IFC Films.
Rated R for language and sexual humor.
Running time: 84 minutes.
Three stars out of four.
She would seem to be the most brutally straightforward woman in America, but Joan Rivers emerges as a jumble of contradictions in the documentary “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work,” beginning most immediately — and superficially — with her appearance.
There’s the desire to be taken seriously as an actress, as evidenced by how deeply cut she feels when the London reviews of her one-woman play aren’t exactly raves, but also a willingness to endorse any product and a genuine enthusiasm for the opportunities that might arise from appearing on Donald Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice.”
And then there’s the acerbic wit that spares no one and nothing, a trailblazing comic presence, juxtaposed with a traditional, almost quaint longing for loyalty, honesty and trust — one that brings her to tears — even after all these years in show business.
Rivers is never boring, that’s for sure, even when the film itself grows repetitive by hammering home a few key points. Directors Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg followed her around for a year, starting with her 75th birthday, and at various times Rivers herself or those around her state the obvious: She’s a performer. She’s hardworking. She’s a perfectionist.
Because she gave the filmmakers unlimited access to her home and her life, we get to see the meticulously labeled file cabinets in her office — a wall full of them — containing note cards with every joke she’s ever told for decades. We see her arrive at hotels in the middle of the night after performing a set, only to be awakened scant hours later to hop on a plane, fly somewhere else and do it all over again.
Rivers’ drive is awe-inspiring, while her desperate yearning to be back on top is more than a little sad. When looking at her calendar, she jokes that she has to wear sunglasses because the whiteness of the empty pages is blinding (apparently Kathy Griffin now commands all the big Las Vegas and comedy-club gigs). She sells jewelry on QVC to help support her lavish lifestyle, and her gaudy New York apartment is a sight to behold.
But after 40 years as a comedian, what is she waiting for? What will finally make her happy? Family alone doesn’t satisfy her; daughter Melissa, an only child, is only half kidding when she says that growing up she had a sibling: “the career.” Filling in for Johnny Carson as host of “The Tonight Show” was, of course, a career-defining highlight. But having other female comics approach her with reverence, thanking her for having opened the door for them, inspires her to respond that they can go (expletive) themselves.
Yes, the biting sense of humor is undeniably still there, and aside from her unexpected flashes of vulnerability, that’s what sticks with you most after watching “A Piece of Work.” Watching her do stand-up is mesmerizing: the rhythm of it, the relentlessness. So maybe we’re lucky that Rivers doesn’t want to retire on a beach somewhere — that she still wants to talk.
Caught “Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work” on HBO last year. Hilarious. Irreverant. She did it her way. Watched her recently on QVC selling her jewelry and clothing line. She’d been with them 20+years. Worked til the end. God bless her. We should all have her energy til we’re 81.
She will be missed.