Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Insulting the director who is making a documentary about you may not be the most diplomatic choice. Then again, Chevrolet Chase has never been very diplomatic.
The actor takes the lead in the film by filmmaker Marina Zenovich I’m Chevy Chase and you’re notbroadcast Thursday on CNN. During their very first meeting, he warns her that it won’t be easy to understand him. She asks him why.
“You’re not bright enough, what do you mean?” he answers.
That the exchange made the film says a lot about Zenovich and also about Chase, a gifted physical comedian who starred in classic 1970s and 1980s comedies like Fletch, Three Friends, Caddyshack and National Lampoon’s Vacation franchise.
“He’s one of those people that everyone thinks they know,” Zenovich said. “It has a reputation that precedes it, and there’s something underneath that you want to achieve. So it was a big challenge to try to get there.”
A complicated man
I’m Chevy Chase and you’re not follows Chase’s life and career, from his dark childhood to the dawn of Saturday evening live then Hollywood, to finish with his complicated passage in the television series Community. Dan Aykroyd, Beverly D’Angelo, Goldie Hawn, Lorne Michaels, Ryan Reynolds, Martin Short, his wife Jayni Chase, his three daughters and his brother Ned offered their perspectives.
What emerges is a portrait of a sharp, often cutting comedian who has a deep fan base but can rub some people the wrong way with brutal inelegance. “I’m complex and deep and I can be hurt easily,” he told the filmmaker.
The documentary shows footage of his work in film and television alongside home movies, cuddling a cat, playing the piano, playing chess, reading fan mail – including a birthday card from Bill Clinton – and visiting a flower shop.
The film has the approval of a harsh critic: Chase himself. “It’s like a massage. I look at it this way: I love massage. Sometimes it hurts, but massage feels so good,” the comedian told the Associated Press.
Informed by a difficult childhood
Chase is just the latest profile of Zenovich, a two-time Emmy winner whose previous documentary subjects included Roman Polanski, Richard Pryor, Robin Williams and Lance Armstrong.
“I make films about these complicated men,” she says. “I’m just fascinated by humans and their behavior and Chevrolet seems to fit into my work.”
Zenovich points to Chase’s early years to explain how he became what he became. Chase as a child was locked in the basement for days, punched in the face and locked in a closet as punishment from his stepfather and mother.
“I think the key to Chevrolet is his childhood. I hate to use the word trauma, but I think he’s traumatized,” she said. “Humor is his way of dealing with things.”
Chase has competed with many comedians, including Community his co-star Joel McHale, SNL his comrade John Belushi and Bill Murray, who replaced him at SNL. He LEFT Community following reports he used a racist slur and directed insults at co-star Donald Glover. He had also fallen out with series creator Dan Harmon, who was forced out for a time.
“The old Chevrolet could make you laugh by putting you down and there was a little wink, so you were in on the joke,” writer and actor Alan Zweibel said in the film. “Now that sounds nasty.”
The film argues that Chase’s darkness was amplified by his drug use. “In his mind, he doesn’t think he’s bad,” said Zenovich, who interviewed Chase twice and then followed him around for a few days.
“What was really interesting about Chevrolet is that he really wants to try to figure himself out. He wanted to go, but something is stopping him,” she said. “He goes to a certain point, and then something stops him.”
“Just Hollywood stuff”
Chase, now 82, says he is aware there is a long list of people who view him as despicable, but insists he doesn’t care.
“It’s just Hollywood stuff,” he says. “It never really bothered me.”
The film looks at his short-lived television talk show and its revelatory first and only season at Saturday evening live. He admits to having left SNL was a mistake and shows how hurt he was by not being invited on stage when the show celebrated its 50th anniversary earlier this year.
The documentary also shows him basking in the applause of fans as he attends a recent screening of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacationand it also reveals that his three daughters are insightful, funny and sweet.
“I think the one thing he really did was he was able to break through that generational trauma,” Zenovich said. “There you go, I use the word again. But it’s quite an achievement, isn’t it?”
