/

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2011: Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

Let’s take it for what it’s worth: a delightful, feel-good movie by any measure.

Full Frame Documentary Film Festival 2011: Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey

Someday, after we’re all gone, and the archaeologists of some future beings are reconstructing early-21st-century human civilization from the fragments and litter that remain, some astute scholar will need to confront the concept of cuteness. This critic hopes that Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey will be there to guide him.

The skyrocketing success story of the enviably named Kevin Clash, the voice and visionary behind one of the most ubiquitous characters in pop culture, Constance Marks’s film is almost obscenely cute. How could it not be, given its ready cast of Muppets and their puppeteers? It’s a particularly effusive class of artist if this film is anything to go by.

Marks tracks Clash from his first, prodigious experimentations in Hensonry as a young boy in Baltimore through all of his career maneuverings. His success, achieved with unrestrained dedication though no small amount of good fortune, launched him straight into his dream role as a creative force on Sesame Street. Clash is so bright, genuine, and selfless on screen that you can’t help but applaud his triumphs. His desire to share his craft and characters with others—from budding puppeteers to sick children and their parents—is wonderful to see.

Advertisement

These scenes coalesce between Marks’s clever still-image transitions into a film easily described by cartoonish adjectives: bubbling, bright, colorful, skippy-doo. It’s the absolute epitome of unchallenging, which may be why it’s the first film I’ve attended at this year’s Full Frame to receive standing ovations from certain enthusiastic members of the audience. (Then again, who’s going to give a standing ovation to a war documentary or socio-political potboiler?)

Doubtless, Clash’s career trajectory is inspiring, and audiences will always be encouraged when the shy and weird-hobbied child finds his dream with such surprise at his own luck. Moreover, a story about Elmo was never likely to penetrate deeply into the darker corners of human nature. So let’s take it for what it’s worth: a delightful, feel-good movie by any measure. See it in a room full of kids and you’ll be smiling for days.

The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival runs from April 14—17.

This article was originally published on The House Next Door.

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey

Arthur Ryel-Lindsey is a Chicago native who comes correct with an Eagle Scout badge and Ohio State University Marching Band street cred. His writing has appeared in Esquire and The American Interest.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.