Tiny Tim: king for a day
Tiny Tim: king for a day.
2019Color - 75mn - Original version with French subtitles
Croatia / Norway / Sweden / USA.
Documentary.
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5 September 2020 14:45
Showroom 300 -
6 September 2020 22:00
Showroom 300 - International premiere
Production: Carsten Aanonsen, David Herdies, Bojan Kanjera, Michael Krotkiewski, Justin A. Martell.
Screenplay: Martin Daniel.
Editing: Stefan Sundlöf.
Photography: Damir Kudin, Lars Erlend Tubaas Øymo.
Music by: Gustav Wall.
Using archives, interviews and fragments of Tiny Tim's personal diary, Johan von Sydow retraces the life of this eccentric singer and ukulele player. This huge fan of popular American songs from the 1890 to 1930 period, achieved major success by covering them with his falsetto voice. A true icon in the 60s, hanging with Bob Dylan, a queer figure before the hour, Tiny Tim still attracts new aficionados, from Marilyn Manson to Lady Gaga.
Even if they're not familiar with him, most people know his very high pitched version of "Tip-Toe Through the Tulips" that seems to come out of a Betty Boop cartoon. Tiny Tim could have been a perfect Burtonian hero, as was Ed Wood. Going beyond the image of a playful singing oddball who made audiences laugh, Johan von Sydow paints the portrait of an artist all at once complex, paradoxical, religious, gay, unadapted to the system and a showbizz star. "My father insisted I see a psychiatrist, but I answered that Jesus Christ was my doctor." His words are moving and they reveal how the image of a gentle freak can protect you in an America that conceals its intolerance beneath its entertainment culture.