I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story – Review

Big Bird: he’s one of Western pop culture’s most recognisable characters, a feathered totem of everything good, pure, and innocent in the world. But when he isn’t learning the ways of life alongside kids in Sesame Street, he’s just plain old Caroll Spinney. The man inside the suit is just as kind, caring and thoughtful as the naive avian he depicts, and it turns out the story of his life is good enough to tell in I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story.

There are no fractured narratives, no leitmotifs, no formal snazziness on display in this tender documentary; directors Dave LaMattina and Chad N. Walker take great care not to overburden their feature with such devices, keeping proceedings straightforward and simple – like Spinney himself. The basic chronological structure carries us from Spinney’s days as an enthusiastic puppeteer, who through perseverance – and being in the right place at the right time – managed to end up meeting Jim Henson, and started working on The Muppet Show. When that didn’t pan out, he ended up taking on a brand new Henson project called Sesame Street, designed to enchant and educate children. There, Spinney became Big Bird, the icon of a generation, instantly recognisable around the world. Spinney’s life takes few twists, suffers less devastation than your typical documentary subject might – but the movie actually benefits from such relatively low stakes. I Am Big Bird slowly presents itself not as a behind-the-curtains tell-all, but as a feel-good film: when good things happen to Spinney, we feel that they have been earned.

Spinney himself makes for the incredibly interesting centre of this film, despite his apparent lack of flaws; instead, we become engrossed in his altruism, and his focus on his friends and family. But there’s only so much that Spinney’s hypnotising charm can do to elevate I Am Big Bird to greater heights: it works well enough in deconstructing the man behind one of TV’s biggest-ever stars, but structurally speaking, it chooses to dip and dive into particular aspects of his career and life in jarringly ill-fitting ways. We may be talking about a serious issue before randomly dive-bombing into the mechanics of Big Bird’s suit. If it’s an attempt to tie Spinney’s personal life and work into one whole, it remains just that: an attempt. The movie functions and flows best when it’s staying in its safely defined parameters.

But despite those niggles, I Am Big Bird is a frequently touching reminder that we can take some things for granted; did you ever know Spinney’s name? But don’t worry: you do now, and this documentary proves that can only be a positive thing.

I Am Big Bird: The Caroll Spinney Story is available now digitally, and on DVD on June 1.