For Madmen Only (2020 | USA | 87 minutes | Heather Ross)
I had never heard of Del Close before learning of this illuminating documentary about his life. Close was a comedic actor and writer, but he’s most known as one of the major authorities on improvisational comedy whose list of proteges is impressive and unparalleled. Clips of Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Robin Williams, among many of their peers, are shown praising Del Close. Bob Odenkirk, Tim Meadows, and Adam McKay are interviewed for the movie and they all have stories about the impact Close had on their lives. He’s probably responsible, at least indirectly, for a supermajority of times I’ve laughed in my life.
But there’s a dark side to Del Close that this documentary explores. Close had substance and mental health issues that made him difficult to work with and he appeared to have severe jealousy of those whose fame eclipsed his own. The movie shows that happening early in his career when he was in a St. Louis comedy troupe called Compass Players and Elaine May and Mike Nichols were his colleagues. He loved May but he was left out of the fame Nichols and May would soon achieve.
There’s also the matter of his father’s suicide. According to Close’s telling, when he was ten, his father asked him to hand him a glass of water that was sitting out. He dutifully does and it turns out to not be water in the glass, but sulfuric acid and his father dies instantly. History, and the filmmakers, show that that is not exactly how it happened. The film also points out that Del Close has spent a not-insignificant time in mental hospitals.
Close had one opportunity to achieve some notoriety with his story by way of a DC Comics series he wrote autobiographically called Wasteland. That series ran for 17 issues from late 1987 through Spring 1989. (I’m learning a lot about DC’s vast archives this week.)
I’d happily listen to Bob Odenkirk or George Wendt or Tim Meadows or Del Close’s partner Charna Halpern or whoever talk about the minutiae of comedy and the longform improv method of “Harold” that Close was a teacher of. But there was one thing I very much didn’t like in this movie.
I have a severe allergy to reenactments in documentaries. They almost never enhance the story and usually just come across as hokey. For Madmen Only isn’t an exception, alas, even if the actors are recognizable (James Urbaniak plays Del Close, and you also see Diona Reasonover, Patton Oswalt, Lauren Lapkus, and Matt Walsh playing figures in Close’s life).
Fame eluded Del Close for his entire life, just out of reach even as another young comedian or actor he mentored broke out. His legacy should be remembered, and this funny, frustrating, uneven, messy, and weird documentary gives life to a man who was all of those things.
For Madmen Only is playing on Apple TV now and can also be rented or purchased here.