During the final preparations for the first episode of Saturday Night Livea group of young comedians, then unknown, are frantically preparing to make comic history. With a new show that will revolutionize American television.
As we mark these days the 50e birthday of Saturday Night Live (SNL), filmmaker Jason Reitman (Juno, Up in the Air, The Front Runner) made a stunning ensemble film behind the scenes of the very first episode. Saturday Night condenses in less than two hours the frenzy around the birth of the cult show, propelled by young, talented but then unknown authors and performers, such as John Belushi, Chevy Chase, Gilda Radner; and Canadians Dan Aykroyd and Lorne Michaels.
The action takes place during the 90 minutes preceding the broadcast of the first live broadcast from the NBC studios in New York on the evening of October 11, 1975. (For the record, NBC was looking to replace the repeats of the Tonight Showwith Johnny Carson, who then occupied the Saturday evening slot.)
We are in the mid-70s. The boomers have become adults. The counterculture takes hold, after the Watergate scandal, the Vietnam War and the fight for civil rights. Without realizing it, these young hippies, with no experience on set, are preparing to transform television. With the first show created by artists of this generation who grew up with television.
Jason Reitman has made a film very different from his previous ones. Crazy, energetic and anarchic, carried by a cast which has nothing to envy of the talent of its elders: Gabriel LaBelle (The Fabelmans), Cory Michael Smith (May December), Nicholas Braun (Succession), Ella Hunt (Dickinson)Dylan O’Brien (Love and Monsters) and Matt Wood (Law and Order). The latter plays the role of the taciturn John Belushi, dressed in a bee costume, who disappears from the studio to go skating on the ice at Rockefeller Center… 30 minutes before going on air!
The director weaves his story like an acrobat in the circus. With the ticking of the arrival on the air, we feel the vertigo of the artists, but above all the megalomania of the big television machine. However, the scenario multiplies the intrigues and subplots. We have the impression that the story stretches over 48 hours…
Saturday Night left us a little hungry. We learn little about the budding passion of young comedians or their artistic awakening. However, it’s fascinating how circumstantial success can be. And that you can become a big star by accident, or almost…
In 2014, SNL had its Quebec version. Which only lasted 10 episodes. However, just like the original version, SNL Quebec was a springboard for talented young comedians, such as Katherine Levac, Virginie Fortin, Pierre-Luc Funk and Phil Roy. To see in this film to what extent SNL was more than improbable at the start, this is gratifying for the next generation.
Comedy
Saturday Night (VF Saturday evening)
Jason Reitman
Gabriel LaBelle, Cory Michael Smith, Garrett Morris
1:49 a.m.