Sony Pictures
I saw my first Richard Pryor stand-up movie at the impressionable age of 14.
I was definitely NOT supposed to see it.
Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip was way too mature for me, both in humor and in intellect.
I laughed at what I thought I should laugh at because my friend’s older brother and his buddies, all in their late teens, were laughing at the jokes that, to be perfectly honest, they probably didn’t fully understand, given their utter white suburban middle-classness.
Nonetheless, I watched both Sunset Strip and this film, Here and Now, a few times because it was a staple on early cable television after 8 pm. Richard Pryor… Here and Now, Eddie Murphy: Delirious, along with Bill Cosby: Himself
(Yes, we all know what POS Cosby turned out to be, but at the time, we had no idea. I feel, though, rewatching 1987’s Eddie Murphy: Raw riff on Cosby and Pryor, Pryor may have known some shit about the Cos).
But I digress… All three of these brilliant stand-up films, released in 1983, made up the trifecta of comedy gold on cable TV.
Richard Pryor… Here and Now is brilliance incarnate. Pryor mounts a masterclass of not only stand-up comedy but also improvisation and performance art in his 3 consecutive sold-out performances at The French Quarter’s historic Saenger Theater. Both the live audience and we as viewers of this compilation of the three shows in this video witness genius in the making. We are privy to a man’s metamorphosis from a sad alcoholic comedian to a sober and happy performer, content with his life.
This film hits very differently four plus decades later. Its impact isn’t diminished; it has altered. Whereas most stand-ups of the 70s and 80s have become huge cringe fests, Pryor’s performance here becomes a poignant time capsule of where we were as a country in the 1980s. Much like his contemporary, George Carlin, Pryor’s scathing commentary on where we were as a society hits hard even harder today. Seeing this 42-year-old pioneer of comedy reflect on where he came from, what brought him to being sober, and how he now perceives his “before times” is… well, sobering.
One of the things that immediately struck my wife as we watched this was just how brilliant Richard Pryor is and how much the (probably) drunk and stoned audience just didn’t get a lot of his routine. Pryor, in all his infinite brilliance, knew this and perfectly balanced the haw-haw jokes with his esoteric and more cerebral material.
I found myself laughing at a lot of things that definitely would have gone over my not-so-fully-formed 14-year-old brain back in 1984, when I first saw it. Even when I had rewatched the film as an adult years ago, some things flew over my head. Now, being almost a decade older than when Pryor first performed this routine in 1983, and with all the cultural and societal shifts in the world, there are things now that land as intended back then and parts that hit very differently, sometimes more poignantly, and some less.
Either way, the one constant and indisputable fact is that Richard Pryor was and is now still one of the funniest and culturally significant comedians ever. Pryor, who wrote one of the most important satires of all time, the film Blazing Saddles. It is considered one of the most important films ever made. Not just in comedy, but culturally. Blazing Saddles remains one of the most significant indictments of systemic racism. A film that confronts racism head-on and never swerves away from the most uncomfortable aspects of the issue.
Richard Pryor… Here and Now proves that a newly sober and straight Pryor is no less impactful and hilarious than his younger, drunken self. If anything, the sober Pryor is more hard-hitting and impactful.
This new 4K release of the final stand-up film, both written and directed by Pryor himself, is beautifully presented with a crisp new picture and audio that will entertain audiences new and old alike.
