F*ck
½*/**** Image B+ Sound B+ Extras C-
directed by Steve Anderson
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover I have no doubt that a first-rate documentarian could make a smart, provocative film about the sources and uses of the word "fuck." But the thing about first-rate documentarians is, they usually have better things to do. Thus it has been left to one Steve Anderson to do the legwork, resulting in a film that flaunts something far more obscene than the Seven Dirty Words: the self-righteous piety of comedians. Though I have been a lifelong user of the famous four-letter word, I found Anderson's Fuck almost completely unbearable, as it brings out a variety of non-experts left and right to get hot-and-bothered about something that almost certainly needs to be appended to a larger issue. Between comics who are all too happy to attack us with their hostile fuck-talk and right-wingers who counter with vicious, repressive hate, it would require a stronger man than I to sit through Fuck without feeling completely battered down.
As the title (typically referred to as F**k) suggests, the film is overwhelmingly in favour of the expletive and its frequent deployment. Although it lines up several conservative witnesses for the prosecution (Alan Keyes, Michael Medved, Dennis Prager, Pat Boone), it's mostly a free-for-all in praise of the word that keeps on giving. The problem that arises is one that George Orwell once defined: when it comes to obscenity, people act either more or less offended than they actually are. While I can't understand a nasty blowhard like Prager fearing that his children will hear a simple four-letter word, the rest of the usual suspects (Bill Maher, Ron Jeremy, Janeane Garofalo, Kevin Smith, Hunter S. Thompson) seem so attached to the expression that they've succeeded in completely missing the point. Alas, Fuck misses the point right along with them: instead of providing a genuine cultural history of the word, it merely fights to defend the right to repeat it ad nauseam.
To be sure, the film fumbles towards a thesis once it gets around to attacking censorship. Lenny Bruce's losing battle against the ever-encroaching Man is invoked, as are the scuffles with the FCC over a broadcast of George Carlin's "Filthy Words" routine; it's strongly implied that "fuck" is highly subversive, and thus prime territory for some first-amendment speechifying. Yet as the word appears to not offend most of the participants, one wonders what exactly they're protecting: surely the First Amendment is under fire for bigger issues than this. What happens is a typically libertarian confusion of personal freedom with actual activism–one is considered to be protecting the American Way simply through doing one's thing and never being challenged on the issue. This self-serving approach to politics is precisely the sort of thing that's doing the Left in: whereas the conservatives are at least proactive about their imbecilic horseshit, the freedom-lovers mainly erect monuments to their thoroughly toothless engagement in "freedom."
In-between, we have Anderson's attempts at "filling out" the interviews: Bill Plympton animations that don't rise to the level of his best work; "Fuck in the News" segments that offer stories on various idiotic censorship efforts; out-of-context quotes from Shakespeare and Voltaire; and assorted effluvia less informative or illustrative than thinly humorous. If one can agree that one shouldn't be restrained from saying "fuck" (and that it ought to be protected free speech), one also has to admit that Anderson and his pro-"fuck" rogue's gallery are a touch obsessed. A documentary entirely revolving around free speech and its opponents might have covered more ground and given a more complete view of obscenity and its discontents, but that's beyond Anderson and his quipster cohorts. What we have here is a dirty joke without a punchline, which might cut it in the clubs but looks a little flaccid in the face of the larger, more important issue.
TH!NKFilm's DVD presentation of Fuck–which is curiously billed as "16×9 anamorphic full-frame" (it's actually framed at 1.78:1)–is a little too hot in its colours and a little too oversaturated to boot. If there's nothing on board that really requires razor-sharp definition (mostly interviews and simple animation), let it be known that this is not a transfer without defect. The Dolby 2.0 stereo audio is equally average, too soft in spots and a little tinny, but as the sound is largely confined to interviews and incidental music, it's not a tragic loss.
Extras begin with a commentary by Steve Anderson, who proves to be aw-shucks about the whole thing, gently explaining his concept, how he got the funding, how he went about collecting interview subjects, and his encounter with doomed Hunter S. Thompson. He comes off like a decent enough chap, but he hasn't exactly got miles of insight. Five deleted interview clips (all roughly 2 mins. in length) feature Hunter Thompson, Ice-T, Pat Boone, porn star Tera Patrick, and Billy Connolly expounding on the finer points of the titular epithet. Connolly digresses with a story about someone's weak heart, Boone relates an anecdote about his daughters' first encounter with the word, Thompson rambles incoherently about uptight Christians, Ice-T is slightly more articulate, and Patrick predictably consents to "talk dirty." There are no big surprises, though Boone's indefatigable opposition to the word is hilarious.
Bonus interviews include a brief chat with Plympton (2 mins.), who engages in more pompous blather while observing that his films stay away from dirty words in favour of graphic sex and violence. Meanwhile, Anderson's appearance on HDNet's "Higher Definition" goes the other way, acting thoughtful towards the show's shaven-headed host without actually saying much of note. Plympton's full-length animation (2 mins.), done to the tune of "Surfin' Bird," isn't the best thing he's ever done, but although it was clearly produced on a shoestring it's the most entertaining thing on the disc. A final deleted scene (2 mins.) finds the participants sharing their favourite curse words; Miss Manners naturally volunteers "Oh my stars!" A "fuck counter" tallying the number of times the word is uttered in Fuck rounds out the platter alongside the film's trailer plus trailers for Shortbus, Farce of the Penguins, and The Aristocrats.
90 minutes; Unrated; 1.78:1 (16×9-enhanced); English DD 2.0 (Stereo); CC; DVD-5; Region One; TH!NKFilm
