In this golden age of home viewing, the Criterion Collection still provides some of the best editions of the best movies ever released, usually with a rich selection of extras and often including audio commentaries (a feature they pioneered, and perhaps the greatest gift ever to film students and cinephiles alike). This column features one Criterion release per week, based entirely on where my interests lead me.
It’s no secret that Richard Pryor had a rough life. He grew up in a brothel in Peoria owned by his grandmother and where his mother was a sex worker. He was kicked out of school at age 14 and spent most of a stint in the army in prison. Then he found his way to New York City, where he experienced success as a mainstream comic performing in nightclubs and on TV, despite suffering from stage fright to the point that Nina Simone said “he shook like he had malaria” before beginning his performances.
As Pryor matured as a performer, he introduced a new style to American standup comedy, working raw language (including profanity and the n-word) into his routines. As he found his own unique voice, his success increased, and he wrote for TV shows and acted in mainstream films. His comedy albums (yes, that was a thing in the days before everything went digital and streaming) were also hugely successful. But behind the scenes, he was abusing alcohol and drugs, which culminated in a 1980 incident where he was seriously injured—some sources say due to an accident while freebasing cocaine, some that he poured 151-proof run on himself and deliberately lit a match. Either way, he suffered second- and third-degree burns covering half of his body and spent six weeks in the hospital.
The freebasing incident is featured near the beginning of Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling, although details are scattered throughout the film, which frequently jumps backwards and forwards in time. This is not a straight biopic but an autobiographical fantasy film, meaning some of it is true in fact and some in emotion only, directed and co-written by Pryor and in which he plays the lead character as an adult (E’Lon Cox plays him as a child). When we first meet Jo Jo (Pryor), he’s a successful performer, judging by his luxurious home, but has a bad drug habit that leads to the incident sending him to the hospital (the special effects are not for the squeamish). While sedated in a hospital bed, encased in bandages and barely clinging to life, he begins to recall his past, which is enacted in naturalistic fashion by a cast including Diahnne Abbott as his mother, Carmen McRae as his grandmother, Paula Kelly as the stripper Satin Doll (who encouraged him to pursue a stage career), and Debbie Allen as his third wife.
The flashback sequences are most interesting for the portrait they paint of the bordello where Pryor grew up and the small-town clubs where he got his start. As Jo Jo becomes more successful, and makes worse decisions, Pryor the writer-director seems less interested in exploring why he behaved the way he did, and simply watching someone destroy themselves has limited appeal. Pryor doesn’t flatter his alter ego, who is shown behaving pretty badly, but without insight into what lay behind his behavior the whole exercise just becomes sordid.
The inevitable comparison for Jo Jo Dancer is Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz (1979), another self-critical, ruminative autobiographical film from a director who first made his name as a performer. But that comparison may not really be fair, because although Fosse first gained recognition as a dancer, by the time he directed All That Jazz he had worked as a choreographer and stage director for years, and had also directed three films, winning the Oscar for Best Director for Cabaret (1973). More to the point, Fosse was one of a kind, and it’s not fair to hold anyone else to the standard of his mad genius (Pauline Kael, a critic not easily impressed, said that Fosse acquired film technique faster than anyone she had ever seen).
In contrast Jo Jo Dancer was Pryor’s only feature film as a director, and it lacks the insane inventiveness that make All That Jazz what it is (I still can’t figure how Fosse made some of his scenes work, but he did—after all, it won four Oscars, the Palme d’Or, and two BAFTAs). Jo Jo Dancer is much less ambitious: it’s mostly conventional and naturalistic film, outside of scenes when the older Jo Jo appears in a scene with his younger self, offering advice or asking questions. The overall lack of creative insights limits this film’s appeal—those who want to know the real story of Richard Pryor’s life would be better served by a straight documentary, while Jo Jo Dancer is too timid and conventional to offer real insight into his inner emotional life.
Critical response to Jo Jo Dancer has been mixed, and that sums up my feelings about the film. It has its good points and its bad points, and on the whole I’m glad I watched it (and people who grew up after Pryor was no longer part of the cultural scene would probably benefit even more from watching it). But overall it feels more like a therapeutic exercise for Pryor (who has admitted as much) rather than a film meant for the general public. I’m disappointed that it isn’t better, although maybe it’s the best that Pryor could do. | Sarah Boslaugh
Spine #: 1247
Technical details: 97 min.; color; screen ratio 2.39:1; English.
Edition reviewed: Blu-ray (1 disc)
Extras: 2024 interview with Robert Townsend; 1985 interview with Pryor on The Dick Cavett Show; illustrated booklet with essay by critic Hilton Als.
Fun Fact: Pryor has said that his film served as an “exorcism” for him and that it was something he had to do to get on with his life.
Parting Thought: Jo Jo Dancer has a 58% approval rating on rottentomatoes.com, making is officially “rotten” (it takes 60% or more approval to be judged “fresh”). Should the emphasis be on the fact that it missed the mark or that it came so close, or should the critical disagreement be considered a reason to check it out for yourself?
