As much of a love letter to a time and place as it is to the idea that talent and creativity can conquer all, Saturday Night pays tribute to an amazing institution. The skit comedy television program is currently enjoying its fiftieth season and proves week in and week out that doing any broadcast program live to air invites anarchy and chaos (in the best possible way). The show has always been maddeningly inconsistent but when it hits the mark, it is often times transcendent.
It has been said that if you remember anything about the seventies, you weren’t actually there but as a teenager staring at the television set with disbelief as the original live broadcast burned itself into my brain cells, the memories are still vivid. The characters that made up the cast had such strong on-screen personalities and the comic routines were so outrageous for their time. The moral pendulum that swings in both directions time after time was actually being influenced by a TV show.
The film which presents a behind-the-scenes look at the total pandemonium that took place before that first episode was broadcast (live of course) has a kinetic energy that is infectious to the extreme. The viewing will be helped of course by some previous knowledge of the crazies involved but even with no prior awareness, the lines are comically drawn between good and evil. It even explains the nefarious reason why the show came into existence in the first place.
The mid-nineteen seventies were both a fertile and confusing time, with so much of the good and bad in the world on daily display via that electronic box. Restrictions on televised content were starting to be relaxed and it opened a window of opportunity to make lasting statements. Conversations that today would have extreme difficulty becoming part of a public debate. The sides are so clearly drawn today that true thought-provoking anarchy seems in short supply but it’s creative endeavours like Saturday Night Live and this film that thankfully keep the freak flag flying.
Rob Hudson
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