Crazy Horse
Zipporah Films | Release Date: January 18, 2012 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 20 Critic Reviews
Positive:
15
Mixed:
5
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumFeb 7, 2012
Completing his wonderful French cultural trilogy that also includes portraits of the Comédie-Fran¸aise and the Paris Opera Ballet, indefatigable documentarian Frederick Wiseman freely, unobtrusively prowls the joint to create a movie that respects the serious work involved in simulating the sensations of pleasure. Read full review
90
MovielineStephanie ZacharekFeb 7, 2012
The picture is celebratory, in its own quiet way, as well as clear-eyed. Read full review
90
The New York TimesA.O. ScottFeb 7, 2012
Mr. Wiseman's particular genius has always been to convey, through judicious editing and dogged filming, the tedium, busyness and quiet intensity of group labor. Read full review
83
The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayFeb 7, 2012
Anyone could make a film about a theater full of naked women; only Wiseman would take equal interest in the person who handles the ticket-ordering, and the one who makes sure there's a bottle of champagne on every table. Read full review
80
Chicago ReaderJ.R. JonesFeb 23, 2012
This documentary about Crazy Horse, the legendary Parisian nude cabaret, is so warm, colorful, and sensuous that it seems like a real anomaly for the highly disciplined filmmaker. Read full review
80
Village VoiceMelissa AndersonFeb 7, 2012
Every shot and edit in Wiseman's film also suggests without over-explaining, allowing a viewer to lose herself in pleasure. Read full review
80
NPRScott TobiasFeb 7, 2012
Wiseman's fragmented approach misses the continuity of the show, which mixes erotic dance with comedy, magic and even a little soft shoe, and tells an overarching story that Crazy Horse never quite communicates. Yet there's more than enough compensation in the scenes Wiseman does catch.
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsMar 16, 2012
As opposed to the "gentlemen's clubs" in sinful cities like Las Vegas, the Crazy Horse attracts couples. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleWalter AddiegoMar 2, 2012
If nothing else, you'll surely relish the extravagant rhetoric used by Ali Mahdavi, the club's artistic director, to describe what is basically a tasteful nudie revue. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 23, 2012
One Crazy Horse staffer, also female, is asked on camera by a visiting journalist to define the cabaret's notion of eroticism. To "suggest," she says. To "seduce." Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger EbertFeb 22, 2012
The Crazy Horse Saloon in Paris is famous for its "erotic chic" revues, but I found nothing either erotic or chic in this reduction of body parts to geometrical displays. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 7, 2012
His abiding interest is in the ways that human beings work together, his famous fly-on-the-wall shooting style revealing the constant struggle to connect and create. Wiseman's are the movies to show to the aliens when they arrive. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 7, 2012
Most disappointingly, the dancers never get their close-ups; whether by choice or by some enforced arrangement, Wiseman doesn't approach the gorgeous women to give them the chance to tell their side of what it's like to work at the Crazy Horse. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 7, 2012
If Frederick Wiseman's involving new documentary Crazy Horse is any indication, that old rule about how you get to Carnegie Hall - "practice, practice, practice" - applies equally well to that Parisian temple of self-described "nude chic" known to its intimates simply as "Le Crazy." Read full review
67
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovFeb 29, 2012
At 134 minutes, Crazy Horse could have used some judicious editing, but that relatively minor quibble aside, it provides a revealing and intimate look (as if there could be any other kind) at an institution both familiar and utterly alien. Read full review
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