Rocky and the clown: Stallone, Brooks docs captivate

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This article was published 18/11/2023 (1034 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The late-life retrospective documentary is having a moment, with docuseries about Michael Jordan and Arnold Schwarzenegger recently being joined by two new films, Sly (now on Netflix) and Albert Brooks: Defending My Life (currently on Crave).

On the surface, action superstar Sylvester Stallone and comedian Albert Brooks might not seem to have much in common.

But they’re both guys who write, direct and star in their own movies. And that need to be in the mix comes out in these docs: both projects were made with the subject’s close involvement. Stallone has a producer credit on Sly, while Defending is made by actor and filmmaker Rob Reiner, who has been friends with Brooks since high school.

Clearly, then, these films will reveal what their title subjects want to reveal and pass over what they prefer to pass over. Sly, which weaves biography and filmography into an extended interview with its title subject, is undeniably a puff piece. It pulls its punches, as a number of boxing metaphor-heavy reviews point out.

And Defending is a lot like Brooks’ Curb Your Enthusiasm story arc, which had him hosting his own funeral so he could hear his friends’ eulogies. In this case, the eulogizers are people like Jon Stewart, Sarah Silverman, Chris Rock, Larry David, Tiffany Haddish, Ben Stiller and Sharon Stone.

We might not get any shocking reveals, then, but we do get a lot of access and insight from our subjects, as they look back on their lives and legacies.

Brooks’ film — no surprise here — is often laugh-out-loud funny, even when covering painful material, like the sudden, early death of his beloved father, the comedian Harry Einstein. (Yes, Brooks’ birth name was Albert Einstein.) Harry delivered a tight 10 at Friars’ Club dinner, returned to his table and died. Still, the evening ended with a bit of a zinger, thanks to Milton Berle.

Reiner uses a kind of My Dinner with Albert set-up, with the two friends having a conversation over what looks like cheesecake. He adds in interviews with friends and fellow comedians, along with clips of Brooks’ early comedy, which really disrupted the standard standup mode with wacky conceptual pieces (the mime who can’t stop talking, the ventriloquist whose lips move, the world’s worst pickpocket, the elephant trainer without an elephant).

As Johnny Carson says, “He’s a very inventive young man.”

We then move chronologically through Brooks’ films, from Real Life, a prescient mockumentary about reality TV, to his films about sex, love and marriage (Modern Romance, Lost in America), which were just jampacked with his own fears and neuroses.

Stallone’s work might not seem so obviously autobiographical, but he talks about how the blockbuster Rocky flicks became a kind of parallel to his own life, as he went from underdog to champion, struggled with fame and money and finally faced a showdown with time and mortality.

Though Stallone made his name as the unkillable action-man of his generation, his story ends up being unexpectedly poignant. He had a knockaround childhood with erratic, neglectful parents and an especially painful relationship with his father, who was violent, unpredictable and pathologically envious of his son’s accomplishments.

Sly explicitly ties those difficult beginnings to Stallone’s later success. His belief in the power of uplifting, affirming endings was absolutely sincere because he needed these stories so much himself. And audiences responded.

The other affecting aspect of Sly is just watching the weary, battered face of a man who’s survived three very physical franchises — Rocky, Rambo and The Expendables. “He was always the ultra version of himself,” comments film critic Wesley Morris and that has taken a visible toll.

If you look at the films side by side, you’ll see Brooks and Stallone do manage the occasional crossover: Stallone’s brief, weird Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot comedy period; Brooks’s terrifyingly lethal turn in Drive. But the real commonalities here aren’t in the work but in the shared human experiences of family, the births of children, the deaths of parents.

Brooks relates the last days of his often hyper-critical mother. (When Reiner asks him about his relationship with her, Brooks replies, “Have you seen my film Mother?”) Heavily sedated, she manages to rally for her last words to Albert, which turn out to be hilarious.

Meanwhile, Stallone’s final reconciliation with his dying father — there’s actual footage — is utterly heartbreaking.

I knew the Defending My Life would make me laugh. I didn’t expect Sly would make me cry.

alison.gillmor@winnipegfreepress.com