By Paul Byrnes
I AM BIG BIRD: THE CAROLL SPINNEY STORY ★★★
(PG) Selected cinemas (91 minutes)
Caroll Spinney calls himself the world's oldest child star. He has spent 45 years inserting himself into a big yellow feathery puppet as Sesame Street's Big Bird, pretending to be a six-year-old. The character created by Jim Henson in 1969 was conceived as a yokel. Spinney changed him into a misfit with the innocence of a child, and Henson agreed. Children in 160 countries soon made him the most famous puppet in the world – or perhaps a tie with Kermit the Frog, performed by Henson.
Spinney is a fine choice of subject for a documentary – a man of some contradictions. It would be lovely to say the documentary is as fine, but it is not, mainly because the filmmakers allow us no freedom to find the emotion. They lead us to it with a sappy music score that's plastered over nearly every scene, as if they're making Spinney's eulogy. I fully expected bad news at the end but Spinney is alive and kicking at 81, and still sticking his right hand up Big Bird's throat to control his beak with four fingers, while moving the eyes with a loop tied to his little finger. He doesn't do all of the bird's performances these days, but he can't give it up. As a number of interviewees say, Spinney is the bird, and the bird is Spinney.
There is plenty of emotion to be had in the story of this remarkable man but the film has been made to conform to American television ideas of what documentary is – or what it was 20 years ago, when TV was still the home of dumbed-down formats. Style aside, the film is rich in material, because Spinney is a talented, vulnerable, sensitive man – more interesting than his bird, in fact.
Carroll Spinney as Oscar the Grouch with Jim Henson on the set of Sesame Street.
It's true that Big Bird is a force for good in the world, spreading love and feathers with his openness and kindness. It's also true he's a bit dull, at least in comparison with the show's other characters. One of the surprises is that Spinney also does Oscar the Grouch, the trash-can philosopher who has many of the best lines. So the same man offers the full spectrum, from sunshine to darkness, yin to yang. Who is he?
Born near Boston in 1933, he grew up adored by his English mother and constantly criticised by his grouchy father, who was sometimes violent. She took him to Punch and Judy shows in Britain; dad threw furniture at him. Carroll started puppeteering as a child. He was doing Bozo the Clown on TV in Boston when Henson offered him a job in New York, on a new educational show, Sesame Street, featuring the Muppets. That was 1969.
From the beginning, Spinney clashed with some of the show's writers. Jon Stone, the writer/director, wanted Oscar to be nastier. Spinney insisted on playing him "with a heart of gold". After the failure of his first marriage, Spinney became depressed, crying inside the suit and contemplating suicide. Then he fell for one of the office assistants, a young woman named Debra. She became the second Mrs Spinney.
Perhaps the second most important relationship in his life was with Jim Henson. They were close friends, as well as collaborators, which is why Henson's death, at 53, was shattering. The scene in which Big Bird appeared at Henson's memorial service to sing Kermit's song – It's not Easy Being Green – has the natural emotional depth that the film has been aiming for all along. Spinney's life deserves a celebration, rather than a lament. Here, you have to endure one to get to the other.
Carroll Spinney as Big Bird with Hillary Clinton on the set of Sesame Street.