The behind-the-scenes drama, the high-stakes potential for disaster, the tussling egos, the promise of cultural impact or risk of ignominy: it’s not surprising that live television holds an enduring fascination for film-makers. For the most part, however, it has been news events and weighty current affairs programmes that get the big screen treatment, in films such as Ron Howard’s Frost/Nixon, George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck, and the excellent forthcoming September 5, by Tim Fehlbaum.
Jason Reitman’s latest picture, Saturday Night, argues that comedy can make history too, particularly if, as in the case of the very first edition of Saturday Night Live, the cast are fighting, the green room is awash with cocaine, the studio heads are threatening to pull the plug, and there’s a llama backstage and nobody can remember why.
Reitman’s frenetic farce pinballs through the eventful 90 minutes before the airing of SNL’s inaugural episode, on 11 October 1975. With its rapid-fire profanity and whiplash camera pans, the film’s spirit of barely controlled anarchy brings an edge-of-the-seat tension to proceedings, and its restless energy is infectious.
The cast is predominantly made up of relative newcomers and rising stars (The Fabelmans’ Gabriel LaBelle anchors the picture as maverick producer Lorne Michaels; Shiva Baby star Rachel Sennott wisecracks and charms as writer Rosie Shuster). It’s a canny decision that brings an additional frisson to the competitive hustle for screen time. But for all the talk of gamechanging comedy genius, Saturday Night ultimately plays it rather safe: it’s closer to a Noises Off-style romp transposed to a TV studio than the blast off of a cultural revolution.
In UK and Irish cinemas
