I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story

The 2015 documentary by Chad Walker and Dave LaMattina follows Caroll Spinney, who has played Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch on Sesame Street since 1969. At seventy-eight and with no intention of stopping, his story is about the physical difficulty of puppeteering and equally about what it means to carry an identity inside another body. The archive is remarkable: Spinney kept his own recordings across forty years, and they form the film's spine. The most affecting passage concerns the Challenger disaster: NASA had considered putting Big Bird on the flight and dropped the idea because of the size of the costume. The way Spinney tells it sums up the film's tone. His relationship with Jim Henson, and what followed Henson's death, is another of the story's centres of gravity. Who it's for: viewers who grew up with Sesame Street and are interested in puppetry and television history. Who it's not for: anyone wanting a portrait that keeps a critical eye on its subject, or who will find the nostalgic tone excessive.