Jim Henson: Idea Man

Here's another in a long line of fascinating documentaries about the uniquely American artist and entertainer who created The Muppets and redefined both puppetry and television for many generations. Believe me, I've watched all the documentaries and read all the books made and written about Henson. He's the artist I've always looked up to the most in terms of what he created and the working environments he fostered. All the docs about Henson tell basically the same chronological story of his tragically short but incredibly productive life. But it's incredible how much each new film or TV special showcases unseen footage and finds new aspects of Henson to explore. This doc focuses much more on his family life than any that's come before. The complex dynamics between him and his wife and first collaborator, Jane, are sidestepped in most tellings of this great man's story. Here, with Jane now a decade gone and his youngest child, Heather, now the age he was when he died, it seems natural to spend more time on how Henson's professional drive and artistic ambitions affected his marriage and family life. The film features a select few talking heads, of which Frank Oz, Henson's closest collaborator, is the most prominent. But the majority of the film's biographical narrative is told by four of his five children.

We get a few archival clips of interviews with key folks who have passed on: Jane, Muppet head writer Jerry Juhl, and Jim's manager, the legendary Bernie Brillstein, as well as some clips from TV shows in which Henson and Oz appeared on interviewed by Orson Welles and Mike Wallace. Other than that, the group of new interview subjects—surviving original Muppeteers Dave Goelz and Fran Brill, actors Rita Moreno and Jennifer Connelly, personal assistant Bonnie Erickson, and a few more—feels well chosen. I wish director Ron Howard had come up with a more inventive way of filming these interviews. He seems to have randomly picked a visual concept from one of Henson's least-inspired short films and decided it would be an ideal way to convey archival clips while people as speaking. It's not. Still, I do appreciate how much the former TV child star turned film director emphasizes Henson's work beyond the Muppets and how he never considered puppetry an end to itself but more a means to achieve the multi-discipline career he worked for and achieved. The film succeeds beautifully in providing multiple windows into Henson's psyche, personality, and philosophy while always acknowledging that he will forever remain enigmatic on many levels. I wish more biographical documentaries were made with this conceit.