Jason Reitman’s Saturday Night is more than just about the chaos of what would be known as one of the most historical moments in improv comedy, but about what it’s like to believe in a purpose bigger than yourself.
This article contains spoilers for the movie Saturday Night.
Saturday Night is a dramedy about the last ninety minutes right before the opening night of Saturday Night Live in 1975, starring legends like Willem Dafoe, J.K. Simmons, and Lamorne Morris, along with Gabriel Labelle, Rachel Sennott, Dylan O’Brien, and Jon Batiste.
On Sept. 13, the film had its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and definitely didn’t disappoint.
What I appreciated most was that the cast of characters was entirely based on the original 1975 cast, which made the audience feel like they were going on the same journey as those actors did back then.
The movie encapsulated the culture and social fabric of the mid 70’s with SNL’s first musician Billy Preston played by Jon Batiste, who’s currently an in-house jazz musician for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.
Labelle was the star of the movie, playing a young and hopeful Lorne Michaels along with Sennott who played Rosie Shuster, Michaels’ wife at the time.
Michaels’ character was both inspiring and delusional, two qualities necessary for a successful showrunner ready to put forth creative work that had never been done before on major American television network NBC.
Immediately, Saturday Night inserted the audience into the world of what it was like on that 1975 rainy New York evening. Groups of grown up “theatre kids” pranced around in the hallway, comedians from all over the world submitted their skits and were standing with cats and unusual props, and stereotype-defying young women were eager to prove their acting skills.
There was a whiteboard filled with Michael’s sloppily organized, pastel-coloured post-it notes that started to overlap one another. A supportive yet concerned Rosie emulated a midwife character, who was committed to birthing the first episode no matter what it took.
That included sucking up to who would be known as Jim Henson (creator of the Muppets), played by Nicholas Braun. He threw one of the largest adult tantrums because he was forced to dress up in a bumblebee costume.
Although I felt like that part was a bit dramatic, the cinematography was on point with the zoomed-in focus of blowing a cigarette to the pouting of Henson, showing the Hollywood pompousness of actors feeling like they’re too good to be playing certain roles.
That whiteboard signified what would shape SNL for the rest of its time. The audience kept seeing it as a place where post-its would fall off while characters would just stare at it with their fingers crossed that they wouldn’t be cut from the show.
Eventually, Michaels completely wiped everything off the board altogether.
That disorganization and constant on-edge feeling of “what if we get sent home?” made you care about all of the crew that Lorne had brought together. They were young actors trying to make a difference and stand up to old men who were more preoccupied with playing reruns of Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show.”
Dafoe and Whiplash’s J.K. Simmons came into Saturday Night as rough top network executives showing the pressure and glass ceilings that many of today’s writers and directors in Hollywood have to face.
Dafoe owned his role as the charismatic theatre businessman and publicist David Tebet. His mind games with Michaels were meant to turn the TV writer off, but Michaels maintained an innocent charm and faithfulness to what he was doing.
It honestly reminded me of a child-like attitude where children don’t fight back when they truly believe in something, but they just smile and say “you’ll see.”
This was perfectly depicted in all of the cast and a designated crew taking turns laying down a brick flooring, where all of those final gaps cemented in place for Michaels. To me, this is almost like a cry out to Hollywood decision makers where their investments should focus on unique ideas instead of prioritizing numbers and money all the time
Meanwhile, Milton Berle, nicknamed Mr.Television, was played by Simmons and one of the most memorable scenes he had was with two of the cast members who were also a couple.
It touched on how romantic couples in the industry can be swayed by others with a more established entertainment career and the confidence boost a successful entertainer could bestow upon an up-and-coming performer.
Saturday Night had the pacing of an actual episode of SNL with in-between moments that forced both the characters and audience out of moving from one stress to the next, from fake blood splattering all over Michaels’ dress shirt to leaving for a breath of NYC air at a dingy dive bar to randomly find a comedian with a book full of jokes at an open mic.
Those little moments of the characters being human and sharing their flaws made me want to believe in the mission even if they didn’t know where exactly they were heading to.
As a fellow creative person watching everything happen all at once, the movie’s BTS feel is what gave Michaels the final spark for what SNL was actually going to look like despite NBC execs not having a full-time stamped rundown and who exactly was going to be on air.
Michaels and Shuster’s on screen relationship was intriguing as it touched on what it’s like to work in the industry as a couple, especially when Shuster was debating whether to use her maiden name or her married name.
The last few moments in the movie were some of my favourite. A confident Michaels stood in front of his crew members with his hands on his hips facing the executives and declared “you can’t expect people to recognize what they haven’t seen before.”
However, I itch to know exactly why the show was such a mess less than two hours before it was supposed to be aired.
No wonder why Micheals quoted Greek God of fire Prometheus in Saturday Night because he definitely brought fire to the people before and after that first airing.
