Having both Being the Ricardos and Lucy and Desi released within less than three months of each other presents a unique critical opportunity; watching the two movies together is almost an intellectual or artistic exercise. The first one is a big, Hollywood, based-on-a-true-story biopic, it is that sort of slightly fictionalized biographical drama that actors and awards usually clamour for. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem (for better or worse) star as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz during one tumultuous week in their lives, in a movie written and directed by Aaron Sorkin who might be described as king of rapid fire hyper-verbal dramas.
On the other hand, Lucy and Desi is a new documentary on Amazon Prime Video directed by Amy Poehler. This may contain found footage, interviews, listening to her own voice in some cases; however it could hardly be described as less emotional or dramatic than the fictional work titled Being the Ricardos. It might even be more so.
The title Lucy and Desi corresponds to their story arc which moves like the great curve of life for Lucille Ball’s personal life. It begins apart from each other through varying origin stories until fate interweaves them and causes them to meet, leading to marriage, television shows that turned into business empires, children born out of wedlock because unintentional pregnancy was not an option back then (whoops), mistakes made over time on drugs but eventually ending with divorce filings being signed whereupon everything else happens under post-nuptial settlement agreements between Dezi Arnez Jr.’s family trust fund managers who had broken their hearts just so they wouldn’t take any assets away from his kids again nor have any contact whatsoever thereafter – oh well! While this could easily translate into a number of sprawling thematic interpretations centered around different grand ideas such as American dream or femininity among others at last it goes back to its appropriate name. It is a story that could of course have many different interpretations (the American dream, feminism, xenophobia, and so on) however, in the end it just returns to Being the Ricardos as an apt title. The heart of this documentary beats by the strange rhythm of love and follows wherever it goes.
Amy Pohler is almost a powerful figure within the movie industry much like Lucille Ball. This funny lady has performed on Saturday Night Live and starred as Leslie Knope in Parks & Rec before becoming a high-profile producer; for instance Broad City, Russian Doll or Making It all belong to her Paper Kite Productions list under which she has also directed two other films besides Wine Country and Moxie broadcast by Netflix accessible from anywhere in the world. Now directing her first documentary with Lucy and Desi might seem odd at first – Nicole Kidman playing Lucille Ball? However, it makes sense when we consider Poehler’s admiration for Ball and their many shared traits.
In this there is footage where Ball speaks about herself taken from hundreds of hours worth of audio cassettes she recorded alongside several interviews she granted while alive; these are coupled with statements made by people who knew her well including her children Lucie Arnaz, Desi Arnaz Jr., co-workers from shows she appeared on or other celebrities such as Norman Lear himself who admired her greatly. Some of the most moving interviews come from Carol Burnett,Bette Midler,and other women who were raised up by Lucille Ball early in their careers. Poehler too continues the cycle of older powerful women helping younger talented ladies; Thus for example Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson were able to kick start their careers via Broad City which was partly created/written/produced by Amy herself together with Julie Klausner and Aubrey Plaza among others.
The story of Desi Arnaz is also followed by Lucy and Desi, of course, and his story and his mind are two among the many secrets that this documentary quietly brings to light. He had an amazing life being born into Cuban nobility and growing up in a rich family until 1933 when the house where he lived was burned down, all his father’s land was confiscated, and his parents arrested; he moved as a refugee with his mother to America having no money. As far as Cuba’s image in Hollywood was concerned, he would typically be featured in films and radios through vulgar characters that played repetitive music but his sweet talk could never be mistaken. They met while performing at Lucy and Desi.
There are some couples who may benefit from working together. Other couples (such as artists) have an economic relationship (or even codependency) that helps them make it through (hence “mom-and-pop stores”); if two creative types are together then they will almost certainly want to work together too. It wasn’t until Lucille Ball’s career peaked with her partnership with Desi Arnaz on I Love Lucy which later led to the establishment of their legendary production company called Desilu Productions.
Desi Andarz may be remembered by people watching this documentary Los Angeles Times article discussed how lucrative their business partnership proved both financially and artistically for both parties involved. Also, few people know that Desilu Productions produced some of the best TV series ever including Star Trek & Mission Impossible whose sets were used for several other popular television shows of 1950s-60s including I Spy, Hogan’s Heroes or The Dick Van Dyke Show among others.
It further examines just how groundbreaking Lucille Ball along with Desi Arnaz were both within comedy and across television overall. Amongst any show ever made for TV there has not been one that had so many firsts like I Love Lucy: it showed an interracial couple and soon featured the first pregnant woman on television; it starred a female as its main character and funny person; it was also the earliest sitcom ever aired to become number one rated show on TV screens; it pioneered syndication, thus invented the rerun; it came up with the typical multi-cam treatment for sitcoms that we are now used to; it was made on 35mm film, making not just a great look but also allowing network broadcasting at the same time as well -rather than simply kinescope format which had been limiting before- so Desi and Lucy became the first millionaires in television (Hollywood usually abandons women around this age).
It is a list that goes on and on but Lucy and Desi says it all, almost with the same rapidity as Aaron Sorkin’s dialogues. The film also captivates by rejecting some myths of genius or innate talent. Some of its purposes in painstakingly chronicling the couple’s career milestones and groundbreaking innovations are to show just how unbelievably hard they worked. Laura LaPlaca, the Director of Archives and Research at the National Comedy Center, includes this tantalizing remark about Lucille Ball early on in the documentary:
In terms of Desi Arnaz, there is much more to say about him through this film because he was a brilliant meticulous businessman-producer who put up an empire with his wife. This kind of approach is a great inspiration by Lucy and Desi which mirrors Desi Arnaz’s ‘American Dream’ type fantasy for himself who actually earned his way up from virtually nothing being a refugee in America. They didn’t relegate them to something like mythical characters; instead, they seem like people who fought really hard to achieve their goals in life. Poehler even mentioned her intentions with her creation when she said that “One of our aims was to use Lucy and Desi’s relationship as a framework through which people are reminded that when you apply words such as icons and legends […] that behind them lie individuals.” That was what Ball had to say:
That is what makes Lucy and Desi so charming; it follows two people whose sheer determination complements each other perfectly when it comes to ambition and creative vision. Certainly, it epitomizes an American success story since this movie revolves around individual psychologies, mistakes, failures besides personalities of each person throughout its evolution process. Naturally, one must fail before succeeding; thus there is romance breaking down hopelessly amid heartaches, adultery hardships along with divorces; however this epic character study weaves everything together through love into a story full of faith and encouragement. In an interview, she continues “And underneath all that pain and disappointment, it is about love without conditions.”
Lucy and Desi: Before the Laughter was a sincere and frank examination of love and marriage, cleverly stitching together a goldmine of terrific footage (and beautifully restored clips from their television shows) to give us a sense of how much creativity, laughter, lessons learnt as well as joy came from this pairing. It’s far more enlightening than any cynical Aaron Sorkin semi-fictional biopic could ever be. This is an intriguing experiment when one considers both movies in tandem; especially since Lucy and Desi is so good whereas Being the Ricardos is not quite highly esteemed by critics but more like a ‘filmed Wikipedia page,’ according to Jason Bailey of Vulture.com.
One question that emerges is what is the point of making movies based on fiction if the actual story lines in reality are as good or better? Can a filmmaker like Amy Poehler craft together a life’s story (or stories) with emotional stimulation, which makes it more authentic and real than well-known performers’ biographies? So then why does there exist fiction films called ‘based on a true story?’ Is it just that documentaries aren’t loved by box office goers? The split between the Oscar-winning documentary Man on Wire and its superfluous adaptation into The Walk starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt is quite pronounced; while the former made only about $5 million at box offices, the latter brought in $63 million. Maybe all these things are about money.
Hopefully, seeing Lucy and Desi will help people remember how much they need good documentaries, especially after Being the Ricardos, but also how much better it usually is to hear a story right from a horse’s mouth rather than from one of its riders friends. Sometimes even a documentary can be something completely different and unique; provided that there is cooperation and creativity between talented directors and actors (like Gus Van Sant/Sean Penn who turned Milk into an incredible movie from his 1977 docu-drama Life). That still leaves many occasions when something cannot get ‘better than the original.’ This new documentary Lucy and Desi gives us an idea of what this looks like in practice.
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