{"id":2431,"date":"2016-08-09T16:50:58","date_gmt":"2016-08-09T16:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/dev\/?p=2431"},"modified":"2018-09-21T16:52:49","modified_gmt":"2018-09-21T16:52:49","slug":"norman-lear-just-another-version-of-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/norman-lear-just-another-version-of-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norman Lear is the man who transformed TV forever starting in the 1970\u2019s with edgy sitcoms that dealt with everything from bigotry, war and politics, to abortion and more. And he\u2019s still working at the age of 94 on a Latino version of\u00a0One Day at a Time<\/span>. He\u2019s also still a screaming liberal, even weighed in on politics when we saw him live in Chicago in May saying \u201cTrump is the middle finger of the American right hand.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Lear was at the Music Box Theatre where he and Directors Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady\u00a0(Jesus Camp, Freakonomics<\/span>) introduced this documentary on his life and vast body of work. It is now playing at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago. The film is a little slow going in the beginning, using a little boy version of Lear as a segue between portions of his life. But the story of his childhood, service in the military, how he got into show business, creations and collaborations and his marriages include fascinating details.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>(Link to the Q & A feature we shot when Lear was in Chicago in July.)<\/a><\/p>\n

Ewing and Grady told us at the screening that they were concerned that Lear, being a producer, would want a certain amount of control when they made the documentary, but that wasn\u2019t the case. They said that because he understands artistry, he gave them a lot of freedom and he told the crowd who came to see the film and him that he loved the film.<\/p>\n

He had a rough childhood in New York City. His father went to jail for selling fake bonds during The Depression and his Mother checked out, handing him over to uncles to raise him at the age of 9. He worked at Coney Island growing up to make money and that\u2019s where he got a different kind of education.\u00a0\u00a0He left college to become a radio\/gunner during World War II.<\/p>\n

He moved his family from NYC to LA to go into Public Relations and started writing comedy bits with a cousin. He says getting $25 for a joke they wrote gave him the impetus to do more and they ended up doing just that for Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. He says Lewis was amazing. That you could just say one word to him and he\u2019d take off on it.<\/p>\n

The film shows how he wanted to do a comedy show about a blue collar family which eventually turned into\u00a0All in the Family.<\/span>\u00a0He says he knew as soon as Carroll O\u2019Connor came in the audition, that he was the Archie Bunker he was looking for. The film shows the respect Lear had for what O\u2019Connor brought to his character and the rest of the family in that series. He says the chemistry was a miracle and \u201cthe fate of the heavens\u201d that brought magic to his scripts.<\/span><\/p>\n

The film shows how he created\u00a0All in the Family, Maude,\u00a0\u00a0One Day at a Time, and series showing Black family life for the first time on TV with The Jeffersons and Good Time<\/span>s. It also shows how he wrote so many, often at the same time and the price he paid taking time away from his own family. He\u2019s had 3 marriages and 6 kids. His love stories are interesting, as are his collaborations and friendships with the likes of Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Even John Stewart and George Clooney talk about the respect they have for him in the film.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is this worth your bucks? Yes, this is worth seeing for several reasons. Norman Lear is a groundbreaker who was willing to put topics out there with characters we could relate to at a time when there were sensitive issues that are still being dealt with today. He\u2019s also a very funny guy who speaks his mind and knows how to deliver a punch line, even when it comes to his own life. Because of what he\u2019s done with his, we\u2019re\u00a0all<\/span>\u00a0in Lear\u2019s family.<\/span><\/p>\n

Music Box Films \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a091 minutes\u00a0\u00a0Documentary\/ Biography\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reviewed August 9, 2016<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Norman Lear is the man who transformed TV forever starting in the 1970\u2019s with edgy sitcoms that dealt with everything from bigotry, war and politics, to abortion and more. And he\u2019s still working at the age of 94 on a Latino version of\u00a0One Day at a Time. He\u2019s also still a screaming liberal, even weighed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2433,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2431\/revisions\/2433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}