A Sweet Jim Henson Doc Lacks the Ingenuity of its Subject

Any documentary about a famous person made with the permission of their estate should be taken with a grain of salt. I know I haven’t always done that -some such documentaries that I’ve enjoyed would have been very different and arguably more truthful were they made without the personal bias of the subject’s friends and relations, or in some cases, the subjects themselves. Yet films like The Sparks Brothers and The Last Movie Stars are still really great, inventive and revealing works. And there are advantages that an estate’s permission can bring, including access to artefacts and footage, and possibly greater interviewees -all of which are present in Ron Howard’s Disney+ documentary, Jim Henson Idea Man, a film that is largely an unambiguous celebration of the visionary puppeteer.

But few artists of the late twentieth century deserve to be celebrated quite like Jim Henson, who apart from just about single-handedly spearheading an entire new media art form, embodied a mystifyingly infectious creative spirit and drive that clearly touched every person he knew -and had a considerable impact on many of those whom he just reached through a screen as well. Indeed, one of the documentary’s greatest challenges is in condensing the life and work, the influence and power of a figure so monumental. In doing so, it does sell certain chapters of his career short -especially his late career, where projects like Fraggle Rock and The Storyteller get only a passing mention before moving on directly to his late-life relationship with Disney. However and most critically, the movie does not underplay the most important facet of Henson’s character -his persistent creativity and strength of will to push his desired medium forward. In this sense, it does justice by its title.

Howard presents the film in very conventional terms, by piecing together footage of Henson’s work with interviews from the man himself and talking heads from a variety of collaborators -but most frequently the children who inherited his company and foundation: Lisa, Brian, Cheryl, and Heather Henson, as well as his closest friend and creative partner Frank Oz. Together, they paint the picture of the man’s basic career path: his beginnings in experimental film and public television (simply a medium he wished to work in, falling into puppetry as his gateway), and his steady climb as he assembled his Muppet team, got involved with the creation of Sesame Street, leading to successive creative bursts with The Muppet Show, The Muppet Movie, The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth. Simultaneously, much comment is made on his personal life -the hectic compulsion that came out of the tragic death of his brother, the creative union he found with his wife Jane and how overwork and distance ultimately drove them apart; the effect this in turn had on his children, and of course the health issues that led to his premature death in 1990.

At deliberate points in the film, Howard drops clips of an interview Henson and Oz took with Orson Welles -mostly Welles’s grandiose statements on their work and the art of puppetry, as if to highlight the artistic value in the career of a man who was known foremost as an endearing popular entertainer. And the movie overall does a decent job highlighting the scope of his ambitions beyond the children’s entertainment of Sesame Street and the general comedy variety of the Muppets brand. Even in those pursuits, what’s emphasized by both footage and talking heads is the ingenuity, the thrill of challenge. And yet of course in his personal life, there was a desire for an absence of challenge, and the kids (all of whom incidentally resemble more their mother than father) are occasionally blunt about it. The allusion to this curious contrast and other such elements of the film are notable strong suits.

Most of the film isn't so critically candid though, and is not much interested in presenting Henson's more complicated sides. Nor does it delve with much depth into his business, what his creations meant to him, or how they reflected his ethos. It touches a little on his determination to break into more adult material, first with the infamous special "Sex and Violence" and then the brief contributions the Muppets made to the early seasons of Saturday Night Live (which greatly annoyed the cast and writers). But Howard is content to leave these as mere oddities, without making the connection between them and Henson's artistically progressive instincts. The film also doesn’t elaborate much on his process, and it all amounts to an image of Henson that doesn’t feel personal, regardless of the accounts of so many people who loved him.

It also can’t be denied that the documentary’s formal staleness is so at odds with the spirit of Henson’s creativity. The kind of artistic flourish and ambition that so motivated him and is so spoken about ought to be present in the construction of this implicitly valid biography. He was a radical and Howard should have considered that in his approach -if not through the utilizing of Muppet performers, as famously characterized his funeral, than through a unique stylistic or narrative conceit a la something like Moonage Daydream, a film I firmly believe Henson would have liked. Idea Man does well enough presenting Henson's life story and articulating the journey of his creative drive, but it's played with no more ambition than a 60 Minutes profile.

And yet, it is a pretty spectacular profile. Henson's story and the varying chapters of his artistic life are undoubtedly interesting. And the footage that Howard is able to draw on, the voices he is able to bring in are charming to see. I'll never tire of that one Sesame Street clip, included here purely because of its virality, where Kermit is singing the ABCs with a little girl distracted by the Muppets who ultimately gives the frog a kiss on the head. The warmth of Henson's creations and his personality is ubiquitous; the striking artistry, comedy, the characters and their impact are insatiable to revisit. It is a treat to both bask in the Muppet memories and understand more cogently how they were made -witnessing the technical process adds to the magic rather than spoils it.

It's commented on in the movie how Henson seemed to urgently race to each successive project as though time was running out -a nature attributed to that great tragedy in his life and that would grimly prove justified given his own sudden passing. Howard is sensitive with this part of the story, but it, like much of the doc around it, feels a touch hasty in the edit. The emotionality is still there, but muted in a way that doesn't suit the subject. As stated, condensing this biography is the uphill battle for Howard. When it comes to chronicling the life and legacy of Jim Henson, none can top the video essay series made in 2019 by Kevin Perjurer for his YouTube channel Defunctland -which goes deeper into a lot of the territory and the themes that Idea Man skims over.

But Idea Man is still an effective celebration, one that at least doesn't confine Henson to his biggest creations and rather looks at the man, his life, and his drive in a more holistic sense -even if in form and subject it doesn't penetrate the surface much.

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