Jo Jo Dancer - your life is calling

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Movie
German title Jo Jo Dancer - your life is calling
Original title Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1986
length 97 minutes
Rod
Director Richard Pryor
script Richard Pryor,
Paul Mooney ,
Rocco Urbisci
production Richard Pryor
music Herbie Hancock
camera John A. Alonzo
cut Donn Cambern
occupation

Jo Jo Dancer - Your Life Is Calling (Original title: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling ) is an American biopic from 1986 by Richard Pryor . Pryor's directorial debut shows, semi-biographically, the life story of the fictional character Jo Jo Dancer , who is very much based on the life of Pryor and his famous accident in which he set himself on fire while intoxicated with cocaine .

action

The successful comedian Jo Jo Dancer is admitted to hospital with severe burns after an excess of drugs, where he is dying. In the process, his good alter ego separates from his body, which is looking for the reason for this crash in its own past. As Jo Jo struggles against death, his alter ego travels to Morton, Ohio , where he grew up as the son of a cathouse owner . However, despite his excellent performance at school, he hardly experiences any love in the family, which is why it is all the easier for him to leave them for a possible career as a comedian. He has received a promise from a club owner in Cleveland that he will perform there and since his wife does not believe in him, Jo Jo leaves her for the opportunity. But when he arrived in Cleveland, he didn't get this promise or even a job, which is why he was about to become homeless before the bar dancer Satin Doll got him a nightclub appearance.

From then on his career continued. With the first contact with alcohol, he becomes more relaxed and his performances are more and more acclaimed. Only one day the nightclub owner tries to withhold his fee, which is why Jo Jo storms his office armed and demands his payment. However, he is less amused, which is why he is on the verge of killing him, had it not been for Det. Lawrence to convince the nightclub owner to leave him alone and still pay. But Jo Jo has to leave town for this, and so he travels to California , where he meets the beautiful Dawn, with whom he lives in Wilder's marriage . But with the further success of his career, he began to use drugs more intensively. And so it is a drug party where Jo Jo is horrified to discover that his Dawn is cheating on him when he catches her having sex with another man.

He then leaves her and a little later gets to know Michelle, with whom he falls in love and who accompanies his rise to film star. But since he turns more and more to alcohol, sleeps with several strange women and, blinded by his jealousy, argues with Michelle over and over again, he loses her too. Left completely alone, he realizes that only his grandma once truly loved him and cared for him. He himself believes that he has forfeited his life, which is why he showered himself with alcohol in his intoxicated delusion and then set himself on fire.

But lying in the hospital, he finds that all of his ex-wives were worried about him and came to visit. With his alter ego he recognizes what went wrong and then makes peace with himself or himself, so that he successfully survives the rehab and can then successfully play a comedy program about himself.

criticism

The film received mixed reviews. The Rotten Tomatoes website counted 6 positive out of 11 professional reviews, which corresponds to a value of 55%. The film was also received with average reactions from the general public, because 66% of 3030 users rated the film positively. This in turn is more than confirmed by the online film archive IMDb , another platform on which normal users can submit their film reviews, because 627 users there gave the film an average of 5.7 out of 10 possible points (as of September 25, 2011).

In the liberal New York Times newspaper , Vincent Canby said that Jo Jo Dancer - Your Life Calls “is not a film that you can just watch”, which is probably less due to Pryor's acting performance than to the “superficial material” which it is Pryor and his scribes gave themselves. And because of the wasted potential and the imprecise showing of life situations, Canby came to the conclusion that " Jo Jo Dancer is very far from a great film".

And although the film has an open ending and therefore “the third act is missing”, the renowned film critic Roger Ebert found in the Chicago Sun-Times that Jo Jo Dancer - Your life calls a film about “pain, [truth], but also a lot of warmth and nostalgia ”. However, Pryor also "took a big risk with the film, because he played his story honestly and straight out".

The lexicon of international films wrote that the film “does not go beyond the sometimes pathetic processing of personal experiences”.

background

  • After Richard Pryor set himself on fire on June 9, 1980, intoxicated with cocaine and hospitalized, there were several rumors about the reasons why Jo Jo Dancer is being taken as the answer. Richard Pryor also stated that his life was used as a template for the character of Jo Jo Dancer , although he embodied Jo Jo but was not himself.
  • The final scene is very similar to the two concert films Richard Pryor Live on the Sunset Strip and Richard Pryor Here and Now , both of which Pryor shot after his cocaine accidents.

Awards

publication

Jo Jo Dancer started in US cinemas on May 2, 1986 and was able to relegate the newly launched Blue City and Karate Tiger to number 2 and 11 on the cinema charts with gross profits of 4.8 million US dollars. In total, the film grossed 18 million US dollars. In Germany, the film was released directly on VHS on July 14, 1987 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling (1986). rottentomatoes.com, accessed September 25, 2011 .
  2. ↑ Vincent Canby : Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986) on nytimes.com, May 2, 1986 (English), accessed September 25, 2011
  3. ^ Roger Ebert : Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling on suntimes.com from May 2, 1986 (English), accessed on September 25, 2011
  4. ↑ Jo Jo Dancer - Your life is calling in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on September 21, 2011
  5. ^ Tafoya: Eddie M .: Icons of African American Comedy: A Joke of a Different Color , p. 166.
  6. ↑ Richard Pryor says 'Self-Deception' Is like a drug im Jet from April 28, 1986 (English), accessed on September 25, 2011
  7. ↑ May 2-4, 1986 at boxofficemojo.com (English), accessed September 21, 2011
  8. ^ Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life is Calling at boxofficemojo.com , accessed September 21, 2011