Home Video Hovel: Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, by Rudie Obias

Sure, the biopic is a very popular genre with films like Oppenheimer, Man on the Moon, and A Complete Unknown, but the autobiography (even a fictionalized one) is a sub-genre that comes very few and far between with films like The 400 Blows, American Graffiti, Almost Famous, Lady Bird, and The Fabelmans. It’s rare that a filmmaker is so larger than life, then they just have to create their own legend and share it with an audience. Such is the 1986 film Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling.
The film has a new edition from the Criterion Collection with a new 4K Ultra HD digital restoration, a handful of bonus features, and an essay and appreciation by New Yorker critic Hilton Als. Let’s take a look at the release.
Written by Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor, and Rocco Urbisci, and directed by Pryor, Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling follows the rise, fall, and comeback of standup comedian Jo Jo Dancer (played by Pryor himself). It starts with Dancer, already a success in comedy, living in a big mansion, as he searches for usable pieces of crack rock scattered throughout his carpets. Dancer is a self-hating addict looking to get high to escape his life, while he accidentally sets himself on fire when freebasing cocaine.
If this sounds familiar, then you know it’s based on actual events. Six years before the release of Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling, Richard Pryor set himself on fire trying to freebase cocaine. As a result, he spent six weeks in Grossman Burn Center at Sherman Oaks Hospital in L.A. to recover.
In the film itself, Dancer is on the verge of death, as we see his soul leaving his body. He visits his past growing up in middle of nowhere Ohio (literally living on the wrong side of the tracks), escape small town life and his abusive father to try to make it as a comedian in the big city of Cleveland, as he grows in the ranks from open mic nights to sold out auditorium shows to starring in films in Hollywood. Dancer can only visit his past and can’t change the outcome, as he lives with deep regrets of past lovers, wives, and drug abuse.
Needless to say, but Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling is an extremely personal film for Richard Pryor — as the co-writer, director, and star of the film that’s based on his own life. And maybe that’s why audiences back in 1986 were uncomfortable with the film. It was a box office disappointment and a critical dud, while audiences and critics were probably too close to real life events.
However, viewing this film nearly 40 years later and it’s not out of the imagination to consider Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling a misunderstood masterpiece. Pryor is (literally) laid bare in the film, as he doesn’t even shine a good light on his own life. It’s raw and vulnerable with lots of laughs and tears. The film is about a man trying to forgive himself for his own shortcomings and failures, despite all of the success he achieved on the stage and in the film industry.
As for the release itself, it comes with a few bonus features, such as an interview with comedian and filmmaker Robert Townsend on the early ‘80s Black stand up comedy scene in Los Angeles and an episode of The Dick Cavett Show with Pryor from 1985. So not much in terms of bonus features, but what’s included does provide some context to Pryor’s state when making the film.
Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling is a gem! Richard Pryor tapped into something that’s deeply personal, brutally honest, and oddly refreshing to see such a perspective on themselves. Although it didn’t find its audience back in 1986, perhaps it will find a new audience in 2025 with this release from the Criterion Collection.