The push-and-pull between a documentary filmmaker and their subject is always present in the resulting work, oftentimes simmering underneath the surface but still noticeable like a quiet hum.
But with “Pee-wee as Himself,” a delightful and moving two-part documentary that premiered at Sundance before it airs on HBO later this year, that tug-of-war is placed front and center. Repeatedly, Paul Reubens, who created the Pee-wee persona and was, for a time, one of the most well-known figures in pop culture, addresses the project’s director Matt Wolf directly. Reubens pushes and prods. He openly wonders why he agreed to be interviewed for the documentary (for a reported 40 hours) and whether the film was a good idea in the first place. He even floats the idea that he should have directed the documentary himself. At one point, when Wolf asks a question, Reubens interrupts him with a joke; Wolf can hardly talk.
For someone as notoriously hands-on as Reubens, a documentary about his life might have started as an opportunity for him to tell his side of an occasionally controversial story, but it wound up just as fraught a battleground as any of his creative endeavors.
But what could have been a bug is a feature – the conflict adds an electric undercurrent to “Pee-wee as Himself,” along with an additional sense of poignancy. The film is a heartwarming and ultimately heartbreaking documentary about a true creative genius that winds up being just as colorful, off-the-wall and invigorating as its subject matter.
Much of “Pee-wee as Himself” follows Reubens, first as a youngster who dressed in drag and convinced his father to build him a stage in his childhood home (his sister is interviewed extensively); then as a restlessly creative college student at the California Institute of the Arts, the school co-founded by Walt Disney that counts his future collaborator Tim Burton among its graduates; and, for the bulk of the movie, as an extremely driven, occasionally cruel obsessive who cast aside relationships and other human connections in the single-minded quest of creating a pop culture phenomenon – Pee-wee Herman.
He succeeded, of course.
If you were around in the 1980s, it was hard to escape Pee-wee Herman (in one interview Reubens admits he was having the time of his life during that period). “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure,” Burton’s very first film, was a huge success and remains treasured a cult artifact. The show that followed, “Pee-wee’s Playhouse,” is among the best all-ages series from that period, with a punk-rock spirit and slyly subversive undercurrents. He was on talk shows (including a recurring bit on David Letterman’s show) and that weird season of “Saturday Night Live,” always in character. They sold Pee-wee Herman dolls. When you pulled a string on its back it would say one of the character’s many catchphrases.
But as the documentary also explores, Reubens was something of a tortured soul. He was a closeted homosexual for much of his life and left a longstanding relationship in his drive for glory. And he would occasionally cast aside those who had assisted those in his ascent. At one point Wolf runs a moment from an interview with Phil Hartman, who played Captain Carl, dating back to the original Pee-wee live show (he also co-wrote the Burton movie). Hartman speaks about his estrangement from Reubens with Howard Stern and seems genuinely hurt. In the contemporary interview, Reubens makes an offhanded remark about how it’s called show business.
Where that callousness came from – was it from denying who he was for years and years or something else? – is never directly addressed.
Reubens had a very public fall from grace in 1991, when he was arrested for indecent exposure at a Florida porno theater. Quickly, the world turned against him. While those around him assured him that it would only attract media attention, Reubens in this documentary remembers telling them that it would haunt him forever. And it did. Reubens talks openly about the incident, which effectively killed off the Pee-wee character. He hid in secret at tobacco heiress Doris Duke’s rambling New Jersey estate. Disney removed him from an attraction at the recently opened Disney-MGM Studios theme park. CBS stopped re-running his show. And Toys “R” Us pulled his toy, the pull-string with the catch phrases, from its store shelves.
Several of Reubens’ closest confidants speak about the incident and just how much it hurt him. He became something of a recluse, staying at his Hollywood Hills home and feeding the animals that would meander up. (It wasn’t quite the Playhouse, but it was close.) It’s pretty impactful to hear them recount the incident, along with Reubens, who still feels wounded. And it’s fascinating to hear how a mini-comeback was launched, beginning with a surprise appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards where he chuckled, turned to the microphone and asked, “Heard any good jokes lately?”
Even more damaging was a 2002 charge against Reubens for possession of child pornography, a ludicrous witch-hunt that stemmed from a concurrent investigation into actor Jeffrey Jones, a friend of Reubens’. The documentary outlines how the case curdled into a political maneuver engineered by Rocky Delgadillo, a Los Angeles city attorney. It’s during this section of the movie that Reubens starts to distance himself from the production. It’s also during this time in his life that the actor gets really, really sick.
This lends an incompleteness to “Pee-wee as Himself,” since we don’t get to hear Reubens talk about the investigation and the toll it took on him. 24 hours before his death, though, he recorded a voice memo that was meant to stand-in for a final scheduled interview. No matter how you felt about Reubens before, and what the Pee-wee character may or may not have meant to you, hearing Reubens’ final words, his voice almost unrecognizable, as it is streaked with pain, is enough to make anybody sob.
Even with this missing chunk, “Pee-wee as Himself” is essential viewing. It could have been a fluff piece about one of the 20th century’s most important pop artists, full of self-congratulation and thunderous applause. But like Reubens himself, the documentary is thornier and more interesting than that. And like Reubens it’s an incredible collision of punk rock imagery and childlike wonder. It’s a documentary you can’t help but get lost in. Just like the Playhouse. But not quite.
“Pee-wee as Himself” will premiere on HBO later this year.
