Buddies Albert Brooks and Rob Reiner discuss Brooks’s life and career in a film guaranteed to put a smile on your face. Courtesy of Max.Am I the most naïve person in the world in that I had no idea whatsoever that Albert Brooks was such a famous comedian? Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always known him as an actor. As a kid who grew up in the 90s and early 2000s and was glued to every Disney movie possible, I remember Brooks from Finding Nemo (2003), one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, Pixar movies of all time. His character, the clownfish Marlon, is one of the fastest-talking, funniest, most lovable Disney characters ever. He’s unforgettable in that role; Marlon’s hoarse voice, his character arc, the way he delivers simple lines that he makes sound so funny.
“I’m dead,” he says after nearly getting swallowed by a menacing fish in the depths of the ocean. “I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I’m dead I died I’m dead!”
As a child, my nerd movie buff self also remembers Brooks from two very different films, Broadcast News (1987) and Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983). Broadcast News, which earned Brooks an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor, is pretty well-known. (Who can forget that famous sequence of Joan Cusack sprinting through the studio with a VHS tape in hand?) Twilight Zone is a little random, but I will forever remember that opening scene of him and Dan Aykroyd. Brooks’s character drives him into the middle of the countryside late at night. The two are chatting up a storm.
“You want to see something really scary?” Aykroyd’s character asks him.
Aykroyd turns his head, reappears as a cat-growling monster, and attacks Brooks… It’s so freaky!
Director Rob Reiner takes a charming trip down Brooks’s memory lane in ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE, a Max documentary that is guaranteed to brighten up your day. Reiner, who was classmates with Brooks and other actors, including Richard Dreyfuss, sits down with his buddy in a restaurant and asks him about his life, from his childhood years idolizing Rob’s father, Carl Reiner, to doing hilarious skit after hilarious skit on nighttime talk shows to marrying the love of his life, artist Kimberly Brooks, “late” in his life near the end of the 90s.
In watching DEFENDING MY LIFE, whose title is a spinoff of Brooks’s rom-com classic, Defending Your Life (1991), I learned about someone I truly had no idea existed, a one-of-a-kind comic whose humor one can never emulate. Brooks’ style of humor was so unique in that his routines were simply spontaneous. It’s like there was never a “script” or “plan” in place when he walked onto Johnny Carson. (Did he plan to take out a joint and smoke it on Johnny Carson that one time? I truly don’t know.)
“He was the first kind of alternative comic,” says Jon Stewart, one of many celebrities featured in the film.
“You can’t copy him!” argues Chris Rock. “Your brain has to work on such a level to do comedy without trying it out.”
We see this spontaneous side of Brooks right from the first shot in DEFENDING MY LIFE. Brooks is sitting on a chair talking in a serious manner about life and talent. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he drops his pants, opens his shirt, yells, and sprays whipping cream over his entire body. The audience cackles, amused by this outrageous kind of personality. There is also the skit where he does mime while talking incessantly in a French accent, as well as doing ventriloquy and pouring water into the doll’s mouth. It’s bizarre and absolutely outrageous.
My favorite type of comedy is one where the person… simply goes nuts. I don’t know how else to say it! Someone who walks onstage, goes on hilarious tangents, and adds slapstick does the job for me. Brooks was the epitome of that, someone with a routine in mind that none of us could guess.
Although he doesn’t do stand-up anymore, Brooks is still a comic genius.
“My mother was cremated, and she said ‘honey, you know I want to be cremated,’” he recounts to Reiner in one scene. “I said, ‘of course, I can tell by your cooking.’”
Born into an eccentric family, it’s no surprise that Brooks is the comic legend he is. For starters, he was born Albert Einstein by his parents. Yes, that’s true. ALBERT. EINSTEIN. Say what? Brooks says at one point that his mother, singer Thelma Leeds, knew fully well the stares he would get from people because of his name. She understood that this was meant to be funny and always encouraged Brooks and his other brothers to never feel embarrassed. So many comedians, as we see, have thick skin when they perform. They don’t care about the mean comments or behavior coming their way. Their self-worth is astounding to witness. To watch people like Brooks be silly and devoid of any embarrassment whatsoever is an inspiration for so many of us.
We learn a lot more about Brooks’s family in the film. His father, Harry Einstein, was also a comedian with his own radio show. Thelma met him on a movie set, and they had four boys. Einstein, sadly, was sick for all of Brooks’s life and died when his son was only a child.
While performing gags on talk shows and releasing his own comedy albums, Brooks eventually got the acting bug. It was Steven Spielberg himself who technically gave him his first “acting” job. The director used to follow him around with a camera and capture him interacting with people.
“I was 20 years old, and I met him, and he was just starting out,” Brooks explains in The Hollywood Reporter. “What he loved to do was take his 8mm camera, and he would aim it at me. I had no other job.”
His first “fictional” performance was in none other than Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), sharing the screen with Robert De Niro and Cybill Shepherd. Brooks would later star in and direct crowd-pleasers like Modern Romance (1981), Lost in America (1985), and the star-studded The Muse (1999). And then, of course, there’s Finding Nemo. Millennials and GenZers may best remember him as Marlon the clownfish, but as we see in DEFENDING MY LIFE, Brooks’s persona has long resonated with the world.
Reiner has crafted an easy, effectively done tribute to not just his friend but a good mensch, a man whose whimsical style of comedy will never be forgotten.
ALBERT BROOKS: DEFENDING MY LIFE is now available to stream on Max.