“I was born in 1938 in a little house on the edge of the Mississippi River. My father worked on a steamboat. His name was Steamboat Milton.”
So begins Paul Reubens at the start of Matt Wolf’s remarkable documentary Pee-Wee As Himself, placing himself squarely in the role of unreliable narrator to his own life story. Unbeknownst to the filmmakers at the time of production, Reubens was fighting cancer, which he would sadly succumb to in July 2023 at the age of 70. With Reubens aware of his deteriorating condition, it lends an aching urgency to his need to tell his story in his own way.
Yes, this could easily have served as a legacy documentary of a remarkable career, but that approach would have done a huge disservice to his artistry and passions. I remember being so jealous of young children when Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure and his subsequent Saturday morning series, Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, debuted in the 1980s. I would have killed to have experienced such queer-coded entertainment at such an early age. My young weirdo self would have felt seen in such innuendo-laden moments as when Laurence Fishburne’s Cowboy Curtis said, “Well, you know what they say. Big boots! Big feet!” John Paragon’s Jambi unmistakably spoke “Queen”. My gay little head would have surged with joy. Those lucky, lucky children who got to experience that so early in their lives.
Despite his breaking out into the mainstream, Reubens, at his core, identified as a performance artist. While we still get a cradle-to-grave look at his life, Wolf honors him by giving the film a dreamy quality, which Reubens requested. Wolf combines interviews with plenty of archival footage such as clips from Our Gang and Captain Kangaroo to illustrate what inspired him. Wolf valiantly and painstakingly tries to give us the real Paul beneath his many masks. His characterizations effectively hid his own persona from the public, getting us to accept his alter egos, such as his signature man-child, Pee-Wee Herman, as completely real. He would even appear on talk shows as Pee-Wee, almost never letting us see his true self.
As such, this project offers up the hugely relatable concept that all of us would love to control our own narrative. Clearly uncomfortable entrusting another filmmaker to shape it. Reubens is sometimes combative and sometimes needling Wolf, who he didn’t necessarily respect or trust, at least at the outset. Looking directly into camera throughout, Reubens makes the viewer question the veracity of everything he says. I wouldn’t want this any other way. The template for biographical docs gets elevated as a result.
Even if Wolf had served up a straightforward documentary, I’d still find Reubens’ life fascinating, touching, heartbreaking, and sometimes surprising. While he initially wanted to participate in the film in order to officially come out as gay, we get so much more. We learn that Reubens got some of his classic Pee-Wee lines from an early boyfriend. I don’t think I’ll ever hear, “Mmmmm! Chocolate-y!” again without a little ache in my heart. Despite living a fairly open life in college, including dressing in drag, Reubens’ chose to go back in the closet in order to achieve career success. Featuring a plethora of interviews with family, colleagues and friends such as his queer sister Abby, Debi Mazar, and the late Lynne “Miss Yvonne” Stewart, we get a picture of a loyal but sometimes petty person. The end of his friendship with the late Phil Hartman, for example, seemed particularly cruel, especially the way in which Reubens dismisses someone so integral to his early successes. Clearly a complicated person, we witness his love of gardening but also his obvious hoarder tendencies. Perhaps Reubens never wanted to burst that showbiz bubble. He presented a fantasy, instead of allowing us to see that he was just like anybody else, a fallible human being. He wanted to put a little joy in our lives, and ugly truths would just get in the way.
With that in mind, the film does cover his 1991 arrest in a Sarasota adult movie theater and later a dropped 2002 investigation into his alleged possession of child pornography. Most of this gets covered by other people or with archival footage since Reubens never sat with Wolf for a final interview. It’s a sad way to conclude this partnership, but it serves to give the documentary an extra layer of complexity. These events clearly had a deleterious effect on Reubens’ life and career, dimming his light for a period of time. His glorious comeback with his live show and hilarious Pee-Wee’s Big Holiday film went a long way towards restoring him to his former glory. I felt lucky to have seen the stage production and in a talkback afterwards, Reubens, as himself, was warm and generous with the audience. He truly wanted to know what worked and what didn’t about the show, down to comic timing, lighting cues, everything. I saw a man who really cared about his craft and one who sincerely craved feedback. It was a rare window into his world that I will treasure always.
It led me to question the concept of fame and what a celebrity owes to the public. Sure, we get many interesting details about his life and how his queerness contributed to his art, but what really elevates this film and what may be Paul Reubens’ lasting legacy is that he turned the camera around on us to grapple with our insatiable appetite for celebrity gossip. Taking that a step further, it forces us to question if we can ever really know somebody or how important that is in the long run. Wasn’t it enough that he twirled tape around his face and ate ice cream soup? Isn’t it incredible that whenever we feel down, we can click a few buttons to hear Pee-Wee’s signature laugh?
Despite over 40 hours of interviews, Wolf never formally completed his discussions with Reubens. He stopped cooperating with production, fearing his loss of control would rear its ugly head in the editing room. It leaves an aching gap in the proceedings, one filled, however, with a true gut punch right towards the end. I couldn’t stop crying. I’m crying as I write this, to be honest. We are all, to paraphrase Pee-Wee, “the luckiest boys in the world” to have had Paul Reubens around.
By Glenn Gaylord, Senior Film Critic
Pee-Wee As Himself, a two-part documentary directed by Matt Wolf, debuts on HBO on Friday, May 23rd at 8pm ET/PT with both parts airing back-to-back and will be available to stream on Max.
For more film reviews by Glenn Gaylord subscribe to his new YouTube channel here ——> GLENN HATES EVERYTHING.
