Personality Crisis: One Night Only

As "Personality Crisis: One Night Only" (2022 release; 127 min) opens, ex-New York Dolls lead singer David Johansen is getting ready to hit the stage at the Cafe Carlyle in NYC, in January of 2020 (yup, only weeks before COVID hit New York, and hard). After the first song, we then go back in time to some clips featuring the New York Dolls back in the day. At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from frequent collaborators Martin Scorsese and David Tedeschi. Here they get unfettered access to Johansen's one night only performance at the Carlyle. This is NOT a bio-doc but instead a performance film which goes back and forth between the live performance footage of 2020, and the archival footage of the 70s and 80s (mostly). Watch Johansen tell the tale of getting arrested in Memphis in 1973, "for dressing like Lisa Minelli". It's priceless, frankly.

"Personality Crisis: One Night Only" was shown on multiple film festivals last year, and finally started streaming on Showtime in April. I just now caught up with it. Better late than never, I suppose. If you are in the mood for a great performance documentary featuring one of rock's truly originals, I'd readily suggest you check it out and draw your own conclusion.