Pee-Wee as Himself opens with actor Paul Reubens looking directly into the camera, having a friendly disagreement with the movie’s director, Matt Wolf. Reubens thinks directing his own documentary is a good idea even though everybody else tells him the resulting movie would be lacking in objective perspective. Reubens emphasizes that he’s not interested in a “legacy movie” and only hopes to “set the record straight on one or two things ….” The chat cuts to black before onscreen text informs viewers that this interview was shot shortly before Reubens death on July 30, 2023. Reubens had been privately battling cancer for six years. Wolf and his crew didn’t know that. They captured 40 hours of interviews with the actor and the creator of iconic comic character, Pee-Wee Herman.
Reubens was — perhaps unsurprisingly — a kid with a big imagination. He talks over a collage of family photos and archival footage, waxing about staring at the patterns on the wallpaper as an infant, and listing the early television programs that had an enduring influence on his growing young creative mind: Howdy Doody, Captain Kangaroo, The Mickey Mouse Club. Reubens’ parents were a fun, loving couple. His mother had a gift for dramatic storytelling, and his father was a larger-than-life figure: a daredevil pilot who helped to found the Israeli Air Force. Reubens’ doting younger sister became his first creative collaborator. Reubens decided they should dress up as a lumberjack and a princess on Halloween. Reubens was the princess. His sister was the lumberjack. Reubens’ father built the kids a stage in their basement, and Reubens became a pint-sized Orson Welles, directing productions of neighborhood children in an atmosphere of creative chaos just like the one Reubens saw on The Little Rascals television program.
From a young age Reubens was magnetized to the crude black-and-white images on his television screen. He was sometimes sure that his parents were imposters and that Lucy and Ricky were his real family. In the documentary he refers to climbing inside of the television or living in a television world more than once. And like many young creative people, he spent a lot of time daydreaming about how he could escape the Northern Appalachian hinterland of Oneonta, New York, and make his way across the country to the West Coast and Hollywood.
The Contributor’s readers might feel their ears prick up at Pee-Wee’s Appalachian connections, and the documentary also fills-in Reubens’ adolescence in Sarasota, Florida. Sarasota is the former winter headquarters of the Ringling Brothers Circus — the whole place was steeped in circus lore and the community was full of circus folks: acrobats, animal trainers, contortionists and clowns. Reubens attended a circus summer camp that was essentially an early training ground for the local show industry. Lots of Nashvillians will know about Chattanooga’s own Wayne White’s Emmy-winning set and character designs for Reubens’ Pee-Wee’s Playhouse television show, but finding out more about Reuben’s connections to the weird deep South is one of this documentary’s best revelations.
Pee-Wee Herman might seem like a creation of spontaneous genius, but the character was a result of years of creative development, education and treading the boards with the sketch comedy troupe The Groundlings. Pee-Wee carried Reubens from comedy clubs and tiny theaters to international stardom, but what about the artist behind the character? And what about the man behind the artist? Wolf’s documentary is formalist and intelligent, and equal to its subject. For all of Reubens’ eccentricity, he was an exacting, hard working artist, and this unique portrait adds another welcome chapter to the Pee-Wee-verse.
Pee-Wee as Himself is streaming on MAX
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.