Remembering Gene Wilder (2023)
Remembering Gene Wilder is, at the time of this writing, currently Number Seven on Netflix’s Top Ten, and why people like it is no surprise, because it’s a lovely tribute to a beloved actor who had so much more to him than acting.
It’s a little jarring at first to hear Wilder, who passed away from Alzheimer’s in 2016, narrating his own documentary, but the narration comes almost exclusively from the audio book version of Wilder’s autobiography, and it really adds a nice, personal touch to everything.
It’s not just Wilder doing the talking, obviously. His surviving friends, family and colleagues are there to fill in the blanks, and everyone’s got great stories. The thing that’s immediately apparent is how much fun these people had together. They made up their own schtick as they went along, which is one of the delightful things about being a performer and hanging out with them—entertainment is a way of life.
Wilder might be best known as a movie actor, but everyone who knew him said that the stage was his favorite. That’s how he was discovered by Mel Brooks, who cast Wilder opposite Zero Mostel in The Producers. It wasn’t his first time in front of the cameras, but it was one of the places where Wilder started getting noticed, and that’s saying something, because Mostel was a formidable personality literally and figuratively.
Performing seemed to come both naturally and by necessity to Wilder, who was told by a doctor as a child not to stress his mother out or she could die. From any angle that’s an awful thing to tell a child, but it drove Wilder to perform, and he loved making his mother laugh. Wilder, who was born Jerome Silberman, had some great influences in such players as Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. Becoming an actor was a foregone conclusion.
I’m slightly embarassed to say that my personal experience with Gene Wilder is fairly limited. I’ve seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Young Frankenstein many times, but that’s about it. Seeing Remembering Gene Wilder didn’t feel like a rememberance so much as a meeting, and the man is truly delightful. I’ve now got a wishlist of Wilder films I’d like to see, especially Stir Crazy and The Frisco Kid.
What was also surprising is that Wilder became a novelist later in life, writing several books and short story anthologies. He seemed to have lost interest in acting by that stage, preferring writing, and very often painting in watercolors. The documentary shows a few dozen of Wilder’s paintings, which adorn the house he shared with the late Gilda Radner and later his last wife, Karen Webb, who still lives in the house.
While the documentary doesn’t exhaustively cover all of Wilder’s life, it gives a pretty meaty overview, it moves fast, and is intensely interesting. Wilder fans will be extremely happy. Possible future Wilder fans might be extremely intrigued.
Remembering Gene Wilder is currently streaming on Netflix. Not rated.
My grade: A+
Principal Cast: Alan Alda, Mel Brooks, Harry Connick, Jr., Burton Gilliam, Michael Gruskoff, Carol Kane, Ben Mankiewicz, Eric McCormack, Michael Medavoy, Zero Mostel, Peter Ostrum, Rain Pryor, Richard Pryor, Gilda Radnor, Gene Wilder, Alan Zweibel
Directed by Ron Frank.
Written by Glenn Kirschbaum.