When André Ricciardi found out he had cancer, he asked a friend to film his final years. André Is an Idiot, the result, mixes in stop-motion puppetry to create an astonishing record of an extraordinary life
W
hen André Ricciardi turned 50, his best friend Lee made an unusual proposition: how about they go and get a colonoscopy together? The pair had reached the qualifying age for men in the US to access the health check, and Lee had visions of them farting merrily on adjacent toilets while the medication flushed out their bowels, then chatting on hospital beds as tiny cameras travelled through their anal passages. André was always up for ridiculous stuff, but on this occasion he surprised Lee: he said no.
“I was 100% shocked,” says Lee today. “I actually got jealous because I assumed he must have organised to go with somebody else!” But André had not made other colonoscopy plans. He just thought it was a crazy idea and for once, he was being sensible. That turned out to be the stupidest thing he’d ever done. Eighteen months later, perturbed by blood in his stools, André did go for a colonoscopy. It turned out he had stage 4 cancer.
“I hadn’t spoken to André in probably five years,” says Tony Benna, director of a moving – and hilarious – new documentary called André Is an Idiot. “Then I get this email from him and Lee saying, ‘We’ve got a great idea for a film. Can we meet on Zoom?’” Benna was excited. He had worked with André, a maverick advertising creative from San Francisco, on numerous projects. “We’d go shoot with Ozzy Osbourne, or meet Eminem, or hang out with the guitar technician for the Rolling Stones. And somehow you’d tie that back to, like, Dove soap or something.”
