Title: The King of Comedy (1983)
Director: Martin Scorcese
Cast: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard
Review:
There are a couple of movies out there that are about
desperate people looking to make it in the big time. They want to make it so
bad that they are willing to go to the craziest lengths in order to achieve
their goals. For example the film Airheads (1994) starring Adam Sandler,
Brendan Frasier and Steve Buscemi (among a slew of other comedy greats) is a
film about this rock group who wants to become famous so bad that they hijack a
radio station in order to play their demo tape over the air. In many ways
Airheads is the rock and roll version of the film I’ll be talking about today,
Martin Scorcese’s The King of Comedy; a film about a pair of wannabe’s who suffer
from celebrity worship. Basically, these two individuals (played by Robert De Niro
and Sandra Bernhard) worship a comedian who’s the host a television variety
show called The Jerry Langford Show. De Niro’s character Rupert Pupkin just
wants his shot at doing his stand up comedy act on Jerry’s show, will he ever
make it?
Rupert waits for Jerry outside the
television station, his plan is to harass Jerry about how much he worships him and about how much he
wants to be like him. Pupkin is so obsessed with making it as the next ‘King of
Comedy’ that one day, while the masses are being particularly savage outside the television station, Rupert takes the opportunity to slip into
Jerry’s limousine with him in order to pitch his comedy act to Jerry. Jerry decides to
give this desperate soul a chance, and listens to Ruperts plea for attention. Jerry
gives him some advice about how to get started in the comedy world and then
tells Rupert to call his production office, to set up some kind of a meeting. Of
course, Jerry just wants to get this obviously crazy loon off his back when he
tells him this, but little does Jerry know what a nasty chain of events he has just
jumpstarted.
Normally, and specially in a Martin Scorcese picture Robert De
Niro plays these ultra macho types, the epitome of a man. Sometimes, De Niro’s
characters will border on being arrogant or chauvinist because of this. De Niro’s
character in Scorcese’s New York, New York (1977) is a good example
of this, on that film he plays Jimmy Doyle, the kind of man who doesn’t want a
woman to usurp his place; the kind of man who tells a woman to “come here” and expects
her to follow suit. And here’s where The King of Comedy is just a little
different then your regular De Niro/ Scorcese collaboration; on this film De
Niro plays a complete nerd; a guy who lives with his mother, practicing comedy
routines in his basement. He wants to be a celebrity so bad, that he borders on
insanity. He has fake conversations with
cardboard cut outs of his favorite celebrities, and so on. He takes things to annoying
extremes. It thought it was so interesting seeing De Niro playing against type.
This isn’t the De Niro we saw in Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976) or Raging
Bull (1980). On this one De Niro is a mama’s boy who still hasn’t found
independence. Another interesting aspect of the film is that Jerry Lewis, the
famous comedian who plays Jerry Langford also plays against type. Lewis was
always known for playing wacky, absent minded characters, but on The King of
Comedy he plays the opposite; a weathered actor who carries himself in a
decidedly serious manner.
The film basically plays out like a celebrity’s worst
nightmare, not unlike Rob Reiner’s excellent Stephen King adaptation Misery (1990),
only without the horror. Actually, this is one of the few Scorcese comedies,
but of course, this being Scorcese it’s not just any comedy, it’s a dark comedy.
Same as the film he did after The King of Comedy, After Hours (1985), yet
another Scorcese dark comedy I highly recommend! The King of Comedy explores
the dark world of celebrity obsession, those psychos that chase a celebrity,
invade their homes or call them on their private telephones. Basically, this
movie is about a pair of stalkers. These are people that want to skip the
normal way of doing things; they don’t want to start at the bottom and work
their way up. No, they want to skip straight to the big time. I thought the
film does well in pin pointing the fact that to get to the top, you have to
start at the bottom, and work your way up. The thing about this movie and it’s
probably the main reason why it tanked at the box office, is that its main
character is completely unlikable. Rupert Pupkin is a guy who is blind to
reality, he is so persistent with his obsession that he becomes annoying,
therein lays the comedy in this film, but I guess not a lot of people saw it
that way. Audiences came to expect mean and gritty films from Scorcese and with
this one they got this dark comedy with an unlikable protagonist, I think this
is part of the reason why the film bombed.
De Niro, Bernhard and Scorcese discussing a scene
Entertainment Tonight declared The King of Comedy “the flop
of the year” on national television. But I say that no matter what its box
office returns where like, this is not a bad film; in the least. Many of
Scorcese’s films have tanked at the box office only to later be admired and
revered, same has happened to Ridley Scott and Francis Ford Coppola with many
of their own films. A lot of films simply fail to connect with their audiences,
or are simply ahead of their time, as I suspect was the case with this one. In
my book, this is yet another misunderstood and underrated Scorcese picture. Ask
anyone about their favorite Scorcese film, and chances are this one isn’t going
to pop up. But take it from me my friends, it is good. Yeah, it’s a different
kind of collaboration between these two greats, but at the end of the day, I
think that’s what makes this film unique, it’s not what you’d normally expect
from them. In the film, Pumpkin says that he’d rather be “King for a day, then
a schmuck your whole life” and in this way, long before reality television reared
its ugly head, this film foreshadowed what reality television was going to be
like; where people will do anything for those ever popular 15 minutes of fame.
Rating: 4 out of 5