Personality Crisis: One Night Only wowed audiences at its world premiere at the 2022 New York Film Festival. Now Showtime audiences can dive into the illuminating portrait of a treasured New York institution: David Johansen.

The riveting and oftentimes deeply personal documentary shines the spotlight on Johansen, the fiery and thoroughly celebrated lead singer-songwriter of The New York Dolls, that wickedly androgynous glam punk group of the 1970s. It captures a true artist — to the bone. Pop culture and music fans also know Johansen was a bit of a chameleon. His headturning reinvention as hepcat Buster Poindexter in the 1980s, for instance, proved the artist created his own genre, marrying swing and blues with rock to showcase something uniquely deep and edgy.
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Personality Crisis: One Night Only comes from Oscar-winner Martin Scorsese and co-director David Tedeschi (The 50 Year Argument). Scorsese culls from his previous directing triumphs in documentaries about noteworthy souls who impacted culture. Watch George Harrison: Living in the Material World and Pretend it’s a City, which illuminated the fabulous Fran Lebowitz, and you realize that Scorsese has the eye and heart for such personalized endeavors. For every The Irishman, the director also manages to take time to create something like The Last Movie Stars, in which Scorsese delved into the relationship of Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

Co-director David Tedeschi and producer Margaret Bodde shared more about Personality Crisis: One Night Only in an exclusive interview with MovieWeb.

Capturing a Cultural Icon

For Personality Crisis: One Night Only, Scorsese, Tedeschi, and Bodde were in fine hands with cinematographer Ellen Kuras (American Utopia). The result wonderfully captures Johansen’s January 2020 Café Carlyle set, where he performed as Poindexter singing the Johansen songbook. Ponder that for a second. It’s a great creative move.

“I think David is ultimately a very modest person, so he wasn’t pushing for this. I think when Marty and David talked to him about it, and Mara Hennessey, his wife and executive producer on the film, approached him, it was evident there were a lot of people who loved him who thought it was a good idea,” said producer Margaret Bodde. “David thought it was great idea. And David Johansen was kind of like, ‘Okay, let’s see where this goes.’”

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Presented alongside new and archival interviews, the concert leans toward the intimate as it showcases a New York that was lost and a performer whose spirit never was.

“Nobody really knew what to expect,” shared co-director David Tedeschi about what it felt like going into the project. “I don’t think David knew what to expect. He knew that we wanted to film the show, then we did what we do. We took the show, but also integrated other material, whether it was from his radio show or other fun archival material of The New York Dolls.

“There are lots of different moments in the doc, either of David Johansen, or the time period,” he added. “But I don’t think David knew what to anticipate. I think he’d seen Marty’s work, and wondered, ‘What could they possibly do?’”

What We Don’t Know About David Johansen

Showtime

Most artists, particularly those who swam the creative streams of 1970s and 1980s New York, tend to be multi-faceted supernovas. Generally speaking, they immense passion and precarious emotions. It’s fitting to ask, then, considering the breadth of Johansen’s work, what most people may not realize about this inventive artist.

“The thing most people don’t realize about David Johansen is that he’s the most famous unknown quantity,” said Tedeschi. “He was the lead singer of the New York Dolls, he had a career as David Johansen, and a career as Buster Poindexter. He is a tremendous performer — both in rock ’n ’roll, and what I would call the American Songbook.”

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Bodde says that Johansen’s humor stands out. “He’s such a rock on tour. His timing is perfect, both musically, and in his storytelling. What comes through in this film is the songs, which tell their own story, and the stories between the songs, which tell another story. And what people may not realize is that this man is funny, he’s open. He’s a very intellectual, philosophical guy, but he’s also like a guy from the street who you can just have a conversation with.”

She added that Johansen is an extremely welcoming person. “He’s not like a totally open book, but he’s someone who is very personable, has a lot of friends, has a lot of history, and just within him, he spans like, decades of New York City history. What surprised me the most was the many things he took advantage of as a 17-year-old in New York City and how open he was to everything. For a guy who grew up on Staten Island, he just embraced all kinds of weirdness and wonderfulness.”

Personality Crisis: One Night Only premieres on Showtime Friday, April 14, and is available for streaming and on demand to subscribers.