LILY TOMLIN

Joan Churchill and Nicholas Broomfield, the husband-and-wife documentary team, have been working together since 1974. After dealing with subjects like teenage California prison (Tattooed Tears) and women in the US Army [Soldier Girls), they decided that, in Joan Churchill's words, they "really wanted to make a film about someone we loved." They proposed to actress and comic Lily Tomlin that they would follow the evolution of a one-woman show she was developing to try to capture a sense of the creative process at work. Broomfield and Churchill filmed Tomlin trying out sketches in front of small-town audiences, actively seeking suggestions and criticisms, rewriting material with her writing partner Jane Wagner, working with her acting coach Peggy Feury. They shot more than 40 hours of film, tracking Tomlin from work-in-progress to New York debut. The show that evolved became the immensely successful The Search For Signs Of Intelligent Life In The Universe, which ran on Broadway for more than a year; excerpts from the performance make up a significant part of the film, a fact which later became a source of dispute between Tomlin and the filmmakers. The documentary also includes background on her career, including early television appearances, and interviews with Tomlin, Wagner and Feury. Several reviewers have noted that despite the time Churchill and Broomfield spent with Tomlin, the most satisfying moments of the film are the performances rather than the process.