Photo By Thinkfilm

Aristocrats masterminds Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette recruited (below) Gilbert Gottfried, among many others, for their uproarious documentary

Dirty jokes take shape innocently enough on playgrounds, where children shock each other with talk about poop and pee. Then they grow up and the jokes mature with them, becoming bawdier, matching their adult tastes.

Everyone has told a dirty joke once (even your mother). Some do it openly, others privately behind closed doors. A brave few tackle the Mount Everest of dirty jokes, "The Aristocrats," the dirtiest, most scatological joke in stand-up comedy and -- if delivered well -- arguably the funniest.

In their documentary film The Aristocrats, director Paul Provenza and his collaborator, Penn Jillette (the large, loud member of the comedy team Penn & Teller), dig up the genealogy of this classic dirty joke through face-the-camera interviews and performances by a Who's Who of comics and comic writers: George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Martin Mull and family-friendly comics like Bob Saget, Drew Carey and Paul Reiser.

While not the typically serious political documentary or art film usually seen at the Sundance Film Festival, The Aristocrats made its premiere there last January. Its packed screening -- set in the typical Sundance venue, a makeshift hotel conference room converted into a temporary cinema -- turned out to be the rowdiest, raunchiest, laugh-out-loud experience of the wintertime festival.

The joke, one well known by comics everywhere but unfamiliar to people outside the comic community, begins like this: "A man walks into a talent agent's office and says, 'Boy, do I have a family act for you.' " He proceeds to describe the filthiest act imaginable, escalating into a barrage of gross-out gags that dares audiences to keep listening without laughing or gasping. The punch line: The agent gasps, "What do you call the act?" The man answers, "The Aristocrats!"

The day after the screening, far away from the Main Street hubbub, Provenza sits in an overstuffed couch in the lobby of a Park City, Utah, hotel. It's quiet and private, the perfect place for Provenza to exhale and soak in the joy of what's happening around him. His down-and-dirty documentary, a film that looks out of place when set against its companion festival movies, is the hit of Sundance.

"We did not want it to feel like we were shooting a movie," he says. "We wanted the comics to feel like we were hanging out, but we happened to have cameras with us. We wanted it to have that vibe."

"When I watch it, I have to remind myself that everyone is not all at the same cocktail party having a chat, because it has the vibe of a great party," Provenza says, leaning forward in his chair. He is a tall, solidly built man with thick dark hair who looks more like an athlete than a comic. He follows his firm handshake with a laugh, admitting he was initially nervous about the audience response.

There are challenging films that include extreme humor, and these films often divide audiences. That was the case for another Sundance film, Pretty Persuasion, a dark comedy about a manipulative high-school girl who wrongly accuses a teacher of sexual misconduct.

Provenza knows that people, both men and women, walked out of The Aristocrats screening. He also knows that the majority of the audience stayed and laughed, hard and frequently.

"There are obvious themes to the film," he says. "It's the singer, not the song. But it becomes richer and more compelling after more tellings of the joke. It becomes what exactly is offensive and what isn't.

"We didn't set out to make a dirty movie. I look at all comedy, and I think about what is the idea and what is the revelation. I can listen to a political satirist and say there is no idea and then I can listen to dick jokes and it's tremendously compelling. Bottom line in any art form is what is its heart and soul and what is its idea."

Provenza is an accomplished comedian and a classically trained actor. He's appeared in numerous TV shows and onstage in Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile. For the past four years, he and Penn have been compiling information for their documentary.

The first part of the journey is over: The film is finished. THINK Films purchased it at the festival, and the early results are good. Now it's time to take it out into the real world.

There are family-friendly documentaries popular with audiences this summer (Mad Hot Ballroom and March of the Penguins). Then there is The Aristocrats. AMC Theaters, operator of the Newport on the Levee 20, refused to show it.

Photo By Thinkfilm

Gilbert Gottfried

Fans of the movie have their favorite version of the joke, but everyone agrees that the standout performance belongs to Gilbert Gottfried, who tells his version at the Friar's Roast of Hugh Hefner in New York City in September 2001.

For Provenza, the film's latest test occurs tonight. It's late August, and he is in Florida visiting his elderly mother before leaving for the Edinburgh Film Festival. His film is a relative hit, and he has promised to take her and 30 friends to the movies to see it.

"I teased my mom and told her that everyone is going to sit on the aisle so we don't disturb anyone when her friends run for the exits," he says laughing.

The Aristocrats is a celebration of incredibly bad taste. It is high-art gross-out, and now it's a movie you go watch with your mother. At least that's the case for its director. ©