The King of Comedy

The King of Comedy; black comedy, USA, 1982; D: Martin Scorsese, S: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard, Diahnne Abbott, Ed Herlihy, Shelley Hack

Peculiar Rupert Pupkin is a passionate fan of comedian Jerry Langford, who performs in a TV show with the same title. Ever since he saw him live in a limousine, Rupert, together with his friend Masha, plots plans how to become more popular than him. He sends his tape with his stand-up comedy performance to the studio, but nobody even bothers to watch it, and the biggest disappointment happens when Jerry personally expels him from his mansion. Angered, Rupert and Masha kidnap their idol with a fake gun and tie him up, threatening Jerry's life unless Rupert can perform on the show. Until Jerry frees himself, it's already too late: the viewers see Rupert on TV, even though he lands in prison.

Martin Scorsese making a comedy? The famous director showed a sense for humor and loosened up in his opus full of too serious films, showing a genre range. Still, out of 10 movies Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro made, comedy "The King of Comedy" was one of their initially least understood films, even though it gained a small cult following later on. The whole film is based on awkward "cringe humor"—some viewers will like it, some won't—and is a sharp satirical jab at "gatekeepers" in showbusiness who do not allow new young talent a way to get in; and at the American notion of achieving success under any cost. Scorsese intertwines reality with daydreams of the protagonist Rupert Pupkin: the first one is genius, showing seemingly TV idol Jerry sitting at a table in a restaurant with Pupkin, until the film only shows a "disparity" of shot-reverse-shots of Jerry in the restaurant on the left side, and Pupkin in his casual clothes in his apartment on the right, while the latter's mother is heard of screen—revealing Pupkin is in his room, just imagining talking with Jerry.

The biggest highlight is the long take near the finale, in which Pupkin does stand-up comedy in the TV show and tells jokes for almost 5 minutes, though they are not always particularly funny—but that was the point, to show how Pupkin is forcing himself on the TV producers beyond his limited talent, even though he never performed stand-up on stage in front of an audience. Still, some of the weird jokes he says in the finale are comical ("I was born in Clifton, New Jersey, which was not at that time a federal offense!"; "They used to beat me up once a week, usually Tuesday. And after a while the school worked it into the curriculum. And if you knocked me out, you got extra credit. There was this one kid, poor kid... he was afraid of me. I used to tell him: "Hit me, hit me. What's the matter with you? Don't you want to graduate?" Hey, I was the youngest kid in the history of the school to graduate in traction!"). Scorsese made an interesting film, refreshingly relaxed and light, with an shrewd story, and the whole cult revolving around (TV) celebrities and shallow lives of their fans was portrayed marvelously. The quirky script has enough to work even with lesser actors, but Scorsese also rightfully acknowledges the performance by the once wacky comedian Jerry Lewis who here delivered a surprisingly mature, ambitious and demanding role. Still, wonderfully unusual Sandra Bernhard almost steals their whole show as Masha, yet is somewhat underused. "The King of Comedy" isn't exactly a king of comedy, but it's definitely a quality made film.

Grade:+++