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Life Through the Lens: Behind the scenes of SNL

(Film Projects - Photo Illustration/MetroCreative)

“The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready. It goes on because it’s 11:30.”

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Have you ever looked at yourself and wondered…how? How did I end up the person I am? If things would have lined up differently, if different stimuli would have been presented at crucial junctures in my development, would I be someone else?

Watching my dad work, and work HARD, was instrumental in my attitude and perception. There was never a doubt that my dad would meet any challenge with no fuss and all fight. I know, upon reflection, that example shaped me.

Creativity has always been inside of me, but it wasn’t until I began tracing that it was unleashed. I found an indescribable satisfaction from replicating, each attempt more and more precise. My ability to imitate soon became a desire to construct and create and craft. It has never stopped since…but it all started with my grandma’s 60-watt, lap-scalding, 1960’s tracing board.

My first love (besides 1995 Mariah Carey) was Saturday Night Live reruns. It became an obsession for me (much as the restraining order from Mariah Carey also insinuated). Not only would I schedule my afternoons around Comedy Central’s SNL slots, but I would have my VCR ready, my blank VHS queued up, and my finger on the trigger. I was hungry for humor — I was studying it, learning the unwritten rules of “funny” — I was overwhelmed by the joy that a simple line or gesture could create from nothing. It was magic! It was sitting at the foot of “Saturday Night Live” that I became a student of laughter, how to let it shake me and how to incite that reaction in others. In some inexplicable, indispensable way, SNL shaped me.

I don’t watch much these days, and I don’t even know how to find blank VHS tapes anymore, but my appreciation and my admiration for SNL still runs deep! And if early Mariah Carey comes on, watch out! I’ll be singing my heart out!

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s get ready! Show starts in 90 minutes!

Saturday Night Live was not a guaranteed success – no, no, no. It was a show green-light to fail. One that was simply a political chess-movie to strong-arm the greedy Johnny Carson. It was meant to scare the machine…not incite a revolution. Luckily for us, no one quite made that clear to creator and producer Lorne Michaels (Gabriel LaBelle). His idea was 100% ambition, 100% curiosity, 100% obliviousness, 100% guts, 0% math.

With the live broadcast of an unpredictable sketch comedy show starring an impulsive and untested crew beginning in a mere 90 minutes, it is complete pandemonium. The physical set is incomplete. The set-list is incomplete. The contracts are incomplete. The sound-check is incomplete. Quite frankly, the only thing complete is Chevy Chase’s (Cory Michael Smith) inflated sense of self-importance.

As the moment of “live television” creeps closer, more gaping holes surface. The host of the entire show, George Carlin, thinks it is a sinking ship worth little-to-none of his time. Cast member John Belushi (Matt Wood) disappears. The union workers have coincidentally chosen now to go on break! Lights are falling – fires are raging – and Jim Henson (Nicholas Braun) is just walking around muttering about Muppet-lines.

With seconds to go, the future of the show is unknown. Will it revolutionize television forever? Will it even be let through censorship-purgatory? Will it last three hours? Will it embarrass the network and its carefully sculpted image? Heck, will it even air?!

Director/writer Jason Reitman has a very unique voice and point of view. I can’t claim to love every attempt, but many of them have been phenomenal. 2005’s Thank You for Smoking was huge for me — it’s sharp satire and relentless charm. 2007’s Juno was unlike anything I had seen before. 2009’s Up in the Air gave voice to much of what I was feeling. I was cautiously excited to see what he could do with something so vibrant and vital as 1975 SNL.

Reitman’s vision to film and edit the movie in “real time” was genius; it creates an inescapable panic and power. The pressure intensifies with each second that slips away. It is a madhouse! Even though you KNOW it will succeed, you can’t even imagine how! The script by Reitman and Gil Kenan is ruthless; it drives this ship with an immovable force.

The cinematography by Eric Steelberg is inspired and intimate. The editing by Nathan Orloff and Shane Reid is wonderful, delicately maintaining the constant energy and angst. The casting by John Papsidera is near-perfection; each casting choice rings true and effortless.

As a true ensemble should be, it is hard to single-out the cast. They were one organism, breathing and moving in sync. Gabriel LaBelle (as Lorne Michaels), Rachel Sennott (as Rosie Shuster), Cory Michael Smith (as Chevy Chase), Ella Hunt (as Gilda Radner), Dylan O’Brien (as Dan Aykroyd), Emily Fairn (as Laraine Newman), Matt Wood (as John Belushi), Lamorne Morris (as Garrett Morris), Kim Matula (as Jane Curtin), Nicholas Braun (as Andy Kaufman/Jim Henson), and Cooper Hoffman (as Dick Ebersol) are all magnetic. Mostly unknowns, just as SNL was in 1975, they each fight for relevance while holding each other up. Willem Dafoe is a great Dave Tebet. J.K. Simmons is undeniable as Milton Berle, charismatic yet utterly cringy.[

It is what SNL deserves: live and ALIVE!

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REPORT CARD: “Saturday Night.”

Grade: A.

Assessment: A work of pure energy and awe.

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