Barbed-wire raconteur and bon mot factory Fran Lebowitz has many theories about the proper methods of creating and appreciating art, and few of them would be likely to be found in the frequently touchy-feely literature on the subject: "Sitting in bars, smoking cigarettes, that's the history of art." To Lebowitz, holding forth in Martin Scorsese's amber-lit, relaxed bar-stool hangout of a documentary on her, the craft of making art is a social phenomenon - one has to be in the thick of things to accurately mine them for one's art. Fortunately for viewers, Lebowitz is no tortured soul of the Barton Fink variety, even if she is just about as famously blocked.
For those coming to Public Speaking without much knowledge of Lebowitz's background as a pillar of the New York see-and-be-seen literati in the 1970s and 1980s, the film might cause some confusion, though not of the terminal variety. Why are Marty and his unseen interviewer companion hanging out in a cozy-looking red-leather banquette at the Waverly Inn and listening to this writer bang on about whatever she feels like? Because there's a reason that people continually invite Lebowitz on speaking tours even though her last full-length book hit shelves in 1981 (there were a couple of children's books in the 1990s and the odd essay here and there). As she shows so vividly in this film, Lebowitz is the kind of razor-edged wit and social critic who is not only doomed to forever be compared to Oscar Wilde, James Thurber, and Dorothy Parker, but who very easily between the likes of them as an equal.
Scorsese said that he just wanted to let Lebowitz riff, like a jazz musician, and that's what she does. He cuts from their Waverly Inn sit-down to Lebowitz holding forth on a stage, whether by herself or being interviewed by her dear friend Toni Morrison (which gives her the excuse to tell a side-splitter about accompanying Morrison to the Nobel Prize dinner in Sweden and getting seated at the kids' table), allowing Lebowitz's opinionating and recollections to flow unimpeded like a great dinner guest. She indulges in some faux grandstanding (answering a student's question about who she thinks is the great writer of her time with "I'm the outstanding writer of my generation!") and undercuts her general bravado by noting that "I reserve all my fear for writing."
There are some themes to her riffing, particularly in her thoughts on the general decline of the culture in general and the arts especially, terming herself ruthlessly anti-democratic in the arts but wholly democratic in the civic sphere. Lebowitz keeps these ruminations from becoming just the gripes of a crank (who doesn't mind lording it over kids today by reminding them how she was at the thick of the writing scene in New York back when it meant something) by tying it to some thoughtful observations on how a discerning audience of connoisseurs (now, she thinks, so sadly depleted in the aftermath of AIDS) is just as important to an art form as the artist.
Scorsese allows himself some riffing as well in this freewheeling ramble of a film, showing Lebowitz driving her ancient Checker cab around town in scenes made up like Taxi Driver, and inserting a fantastic shot of the famously time-challenged author peeking out of the giant clock at Grand Central Terminal. He interjects some black-and-white footage of a couple infamously and emotionally charged debates (one between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley and the other between Buckley and Gore Vidal, whom Buckley threatens to sock in the face). These don't specifically relate to the subject at hand except for a stray reference of Lebowitz's to having been inspired by seeing Baldwin on television as a child. What Scorsese is trying for, with these clips and lingering shots of the artists' mural at the Waverly, is a sense, bordering on the nostalgic, of the intellectual in the public sphere, still swinging away with unapologetic elitism and ice-cold sarcasm.
For those coming to Public Speaking without much knowledge of Lebowitz's background as a pillar of the New York see-and-be-seen literati in the 1970s and 1980s, the film might cause some confusion, though not of the terminal variety. Why are Marty and his unseen interviewer companion hanging out in a cozy-looking red-leather banquette at the Waverly Inn and listening to this writer bang on about whatever she feels like? Because there's a reason that people continually invite Lebowitz on speaking tours even though her last full-length book hit shelves in 1981 (there were a couple of children's books in the 1990s and the odd essay here and there). As she shows so vividly in this film, Lebowitz is the kind of razor-edged wit and social critic who is not only doomed to forever be compared to Oscar Wilde, James Thurber, and Dorothy Parker, but who very easily between the likes of them as an equal.
Scorsese said that he just wanted to let Lebowitz riff, like a jazz musician, and that's what she does. He cuts from their Waverly Inn sit-down to Lebowitz holding forth on a stage, whether by herself or being interviewed by her dear friend Toni Morrison (which gives her the excuse to tell a side-splitter about accompanying Morrison to the Nobel Prize dinner in Sweden and getting seated at the kids' table), allowing Lebowitz's opinionating and recollections to flow unimpeded like a great dinner guest. She indulges in some faux grandstanding (answering a student's question about who she thinks is the great writer of her time with "I'm the outstanding writer of my generation!") and undercuts her general bravado by noting that "I reserve all my fear for writing."
There are some themes to her riffing, particularly in her thoughts on the general decline of the culture in general and the arts especially, terming herself ruthlessly anti-democratic in the arts but wholly democratic in the civic sphere. Lebowitz keeps these ruminations from becoming just the gripes of a crank (who doesn't mind lording it over kids today by reminding them how she was at the thick of the writing scene in New York back when it meant something) by tying it to some thoughtful observations on how a discerning audience of connoisseurs (now, she thinks, so sadly depleted in the aftermath of AIDS) is just as important to an art form as the artist.
Scorsese allows himself some riffing as well in this freewheeling ramble of a film, showing Lebowitz driving her ancient Checker cab around town in scenes made up like Taxi Driver, and inserting a fantastic shot of the famously time-challenged author peeking out of the giant clock at Grand Central Terminal. He interjects some black-and-white footage of a couple infamously and emotionally charged debates (one between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley and the other between Buckley and Gore Vidal, whom Buckley threatens to sock in the face). These don't specifically relate to the subject at hand except for a stray reference of Lebowitz's to having been inspired by seeing Baldwin on television as a child. What Scorsese is trying for, with these clips and lingering shots of the artists' mural at the Waverly, is a sense, bordering on the nostalgic, of the intellectual in the public sphere, still swinging away with unapologetic elitism and ice-cold sarcasm.
