The Doctor’s Diagnosis: A-
Saturday Night is a dramatization (or fictionalization, depending on how you look at it) of the 90 minutes leading up to the filming of the first episode of Saturday Night Live on October 11, 1975. Like many people, I stopped watching Saturday Night Live a long, long time ago, but the social impact that the show had in its day is undeniable and the stress of creating a live ensemble show is something that gives me anxiety just thinking about it. Regardless of whether or not you are a fan of the show, the film is a fast-faced portrait of the comedic chaos that goes into such a production and, regardless of accuracy, is a really fun inside look into the production bedlam of live television.
Taking place more or less in real-time, the film follows SNL producer Lorne Michaels (played by Gabriel LaBelle) as he attempts to navigate all manner of productions issues, erratic cast members and overbearing executives to make sure that the show is ready to roll at 11:30pm. The nearest comparison that springs to mind is Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance), another real-time journey to the start of a live production. While Saturday Night lacks the gravitas and artistic ambition of Birdman, it aims for (and mostly succeeds) at creating a more comedic tone than that film and captures the lighting-in-a-bottle creative miracle of the show’s early days.
The plot really is just Michaels desperately trying to keep this thing together long enough to make the air, so the film is largely a conglomeration of various subplots and running gags that he has to contend with to make the show happen. There is Jim Hansen constantly fretting about the show’s material being inappropriate for his muppets. There is Andy Kaufman generally being an awkward weirdo and Billy Crystal worrying if he will be cut from the broadcast because there is way too much material planned for the allotted runtime. Chevy Chase is being Chevy Chase (i.e., being a cocky asshole) and fighting with John Belushi, who has yet to sign his contract for the show. George Carlin is supposed to be the host, but he wants to walk. There is a great running gag about how brick needs to be laid for the set, but union rules are only allowing one guy to do it and it’s taking forever. All the while, the clock is ticking as an executive (played by scenery-chewing Willem Dafoe) threatens to pull the plug and cut to a rerun of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson instead of going through with the broadcast.
All of these threads, and many more, put the audience into the chaos of trying to keep all of these personalities on point for the task at hand. However, with so much going on and so many famous personalities present, not everyone can receive proper attention in the film’s 109-minute running time. Of the main cast members, Chevy Chase and Garrett Morris probably get the most screentime and development. Belushi gets a decent amount of attention, but is enigmatic; the film offers little insight into the man other than presenting him as an unpredictable variable (which, admittedly, might be accurate). Dan Aykroyd and Gilda Radner have a few funny moments, but seem oddly sidelined considering their level of importance to the show. Everyone else is basically a minor player that appears in the background. To give all of these people the attention that they deserve would force the film to have an excessive running time, but I was hoping to gain greater insight into these people at this key point in their careers than the movie is able to provide.
For a film so specifically centered on a single night in history, Saturday Night does take a lot of liberties. People recently published an article breaking down the accuracy of various events depicted in the film and I don’t intend to rehash it here, but director and co-writer Jason Reitman certainly did embellish things. Various events depicted in the movie (or at least variations of those events) did occur, but not in the timeframe or manner shown here. For example, Belushi did wait until the last second to sign his contract, but the soul-searching scene in Rockefeller Center is fabricated. Most importantly, the real Lorne Michaels has said that executives never threatened to pull the plug at the last second; their biggest concern was that George Carlin was refusing to wear a suit for the opening monologue. There is always a degree of artistic license when portraying true events, but it seems odd to focus on such a specific period of 90 minutes when such embellishments are needed to make them interesting.
But they are interesting, nonetheless. As a representation of real people and events, Saturday Night isn’t particularly accurate or insightful. But as a comedic look into the world of television production, it is a very fun ride that manages to create suspense despite the foregone conclusion. I was on the fence between a B+ and an A-, but The Film Nurse really enjoyed it and said she would yell at me if I went below an A-. So there you go. My grades are very scientific, you know.
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