Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip

Richard Pryor walks on stage and goes straight to it: a few months earlier he had set himself on fire. Everyone had called it an accident; he tells the truth: he set himself alight deliberately, while freebasing cocaine. The audience waits, unsure whether to laugh, and then laughs, because Pryor is funny even telling his own pain. Then he describes his trip to Africa, where he says he decided for the first time never to use a certain word again. Death, race, addiction and family all run together in one night. Joe Layton directs. Richard Pryor is in the cast. It is an American production. The special was filmed in Los Angeles in 1982 and is counted among the most remembered stand up films. The matter it treats is telling the hardest truth about yourself; Pryor tells the story of his own fire without asking for pity. The special weaves personal material together with political material; racism and addiction come in the same sentence. Pryor's language on stage is profane and direct; the material is not filtered. The narrative is not chronological; it jumps between subjects and each jump deepens the last joke. The film was shot from a single camera angle and the editing kept plain. The special was counted at the time as a comeback for Pryor's career. The ending closes on an acceptance. Its limit is content; the material is very personal and some of it is still uncomfortable today. Who it is for: viewers curious about the history of stand up and about Pryor. Who it is not for: the subjects are heavy, the language explicit, and the ending emotional.