Lorne

Summary

“Lorne is the ultimate show business survivor. He’s still here and hundreds of executives are not.” – Conan O’Brien

Saturday Night Live has proven itself to be a cornerstone of the comedic landscape since its debut season over fifty years ago. Given the longevity of the show, and the mystique of the show’s iconic producer Lorne Michaels, it was probably only a matter of time until someone aimed a camera at Lorne and tried to describe how he has maintained his operation for forty five of the fifty years the show has existed. Acclaimed documentarian Morgan Neville worked roughly a year on tackling the subject with unprecedented access to Lorne and his inner circle. The resulting documentary Lorne is now available on Blu-ray from Universal. I was eager to check the film out as a long-time fan of SNL.

Through interviews with Lorne himself, behind-the-scenes footage of multiple Saturday Night Live tapings, and numerous interviews with prominent cast and crew members for the show, Morgan Neville attempts to examine who Lorne Michaels truly is. The amount of talent onscreen in the documentary is overwhelming: Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Bill Hader, Steve Martin, Martin Short, John Mulaney, Colin Jost, Conan O’Brien, Steve Higgins, Michael Che, Pau Simon, Paula Pell, Tom Schiller, James Andrew Miller, Tina Fey, Mike Myers, Maya Rudolph, Jim Downey, Chevy Chase, Seth Meyers, Alec Baldwin, Dana Carvey, and so many more. The film is narrated by SNL alum Chris Parnell. Between the numerous interviews, footage, and animated segments courtesy of Robert Smigel, a picture emerges of a hardworking man who has spent the majority of his life attempting to protect his show from being destroyed by outside forces. Lorne’s routines and habits and the inner workings of the show are examined at length.

Like many people, Saturday Night Live was revelatory for me in my youth. It was foundational in shaping my sense of humor. I grew up during the years where Comedy Central reran all the best episodes from the Myers-Hartman-Sandler-Farley-Carvey years, and I would watch hours of that before catching the latest episode of the Ferrell-Meadows-Norm season each Saturday. I have continued to watch the show through all of its best and worst seasons since, passing it along to the next generation in my household by watching it with my wife and children weekly. It is obvious that Morgan Neville is a huge fan of the show, which it can be assumed will also be the case for most viewers of this documentary. I have viewed several of Neville’s pictures and particularly enjoyed Best of Enemies: Buckley vs. Vidal and Roadrunner: A Film About Anthony Bourdain. His latest picture is entertaining and breezy, but it suffers from “too much/not enough.” What I mean to say by that: Neville has focused his camera on amazing array of talent (I mean, just look at the names listed above,) but the runtime for the film is an hour and forty minutes. This means that the people that speak on camera in the picture have their talking points whittled down from what I imagine were some very interesting conversations into small snippets. This is one of those cases where I would have been happier with excess. Almost all of the people who speak about Lorne in the documentary are talented writers as well as performers, but when they are abbreviated like this, the narrative misses something. The picture does a pretty solid job of explaining the proclivities and actions of Lorne Michaels while hitting the highlights of his career along the way, but it feels slightly glossed over. 

This is not to say that I disliked the film in the least bit. The film is certainly entertaining and cheerful. It has the effect of bringing the viewer a smile based on the amount of old friends the film puts onscreen. That said, I wish Neville had been able to dig just a little bit deeper into Lorne. I would certainly recommend watching the picture, but I would warn potential viewers not to expect to come out of it with a deep understanding of who Lorne Michaels is. 

Video

Universal delivers Lorne to Blu-ray with what comes close to a reference quality transfer in 1080p using an MPEG-4 AVC codec. The archival footage is occasionally in 1:33:1 frame, whereas the interview footage from 2025 is presented in 1.78:1. Like all documentaries, the footage varies in quality, but overall the film looks great. I have no complaints whatsoever about how this film looks, and can’t imagine that the film would appreciate by a tremendous amount in 4K.

Audio

Universal has provided a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track. Given that this is a documentary, the film is largely dialogue based. The score behind the interviews by Darian Sahanaja is upbeat and whimsical and never overtakes the stories being told. There is nothing negative to report about this track.

Supplements:

• Sadly there are no supplements

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 0/5

Overall – 3.75/5

Lorne is an enjoyable, albeit fairly unrevealing, documentary about the iconic producer of Saturday Night Live, Lorne Michaels. While the picture does a great job of showcasing the numerous talented folks that have been on the show, while also exploring the ways in which the show is made and Lorne’s numeorus routines, the film fails to dig deep into what makes Lorne Michaels tick. I had a good time watching the picture, but I felt that given the amazing array of talented folks interviewed, possibly more time could have been allotted to the runtime of the picture to truly round out its explorations. Morgan Neville is an extremely capable documentarian. I have enjoyed numerous other projects by him, and despite my qualms I still enjoyed the film for what it was. It is obvious that he is a big fan of the series and the man behind it, so the picture still works as a loving tribute to a true trailblazer of comedy. The technical presentation on the Blu-ray is solid, but the lack of special features is a real shame considering that there are surely hours and hours of great interviews that sat on the cutting floor. 

The film can be purchased at www.moviezyng.com.