The King of Comedy (1983)
December 24th, 2003 at 10:24 am (1 - Pretty bad)
You might call it Taxi Driver (1976) meets Misery (1990). Or you may just call it plain old freaky. In The King of Comedy (1983) Robert De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring standup coming so infatuated with the Jerry Lewis like host of a late night variety show (played by Lewis himself) that he keeps assailing his idol, looking for a break and goes so far as to kidnap the host and hold him hostage until he is given a chance to perform his routine on national television. The movie made me squirm as Pupkin kept delving further down into fantasies of fame and fortune but really managed a pinnacle of discomfort when it gets to a scene where Pupkin’s partner in crime (played by Sandra Bernhard) prepares to rape the captive comedian while explaining how her therapist advices her to ‘not get too excited’. Not a movie I would recommend, and definitely an odd note in the filmography for director Martin Scorsese.
john said,
December 24, 2003 at 11:52 pm
hmmmmm…. I think your comments about this movie play right into the point that Scorsese was attempting to make - that there are many people out there who have an unhealthy fixation on celebrities, and will do anything in their means to bathe in someone elses limelight. And I think that Scorsese hits a bullseye. This is a movie, much like “Network”, that was way ahead of it’s time. But since it’s release, the outlandishness of it’s ideas are now all to real. Since the release of “King of Comedy”, we have seen the killing of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a demented fan seeking an autograph… the murder of singer Selena by a disgruntled fan club president… countless arrests of “entourage” members of famous celebrities… even a TV show (Celebrity Justice) that updates viewers daily on the legal woes of the rich and famous, and their countless over-eager admirers.
Yes, “The King of Comedy” is a movie that makes you squirm… but it should… that is its intent. And it succeeds from beginning to end. It is well made and extremely well written, and delves deeply into the psyche of its characters. Not many films can have that said about them. These people are much more frightening than those you’ll find in a “Silence of the Lambs”, for example, because they could be any one of us. In fact, I think that is Scorsese’s ultimate point - that it really isn’t that difficult for any of us to become over-fixated on another person (famous or not), and be unaware of how that affects and shapes our lives for good or ill. 4 out of 5 from me.
Nick said,
January 3, 2004 at 11:21 pm
Gotta disagree with you vehemently as well, Leopoldo. This is Scorsese’s best work behind Mean Streets. Better casting for Bernhard’s part would have served the film quite well, but I think you’re missing the nuance in the wonderful character developed by DeNiro. The ending is the punchline that makes all the work worthwhile, too. Ultimately he’s not just some loser schmoe. He has talent and he got to prove it. And then he gets to deliver that brilliant line: “Better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime.” That one line says so much about the character and gives an amazing amount of depth to everything that has happened. I could do without Bernhard, but DeNiro and Lewis are perfect and brilliant and the writing is as well. I’d take this over Taxi Driver or Raging Bull anyday.
Homer Joyce said,
February 5, 2004 at 2:57 pm
So many people just don’t get it. The King of Comedy is the King of Comedy Films. It reigns up there on twin thrones with Barton Fink.
What is funnier than an aspiring comedian being told that the media personality he wants to see wont be in for a couple of days and he replies, “It’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.’?
And then Scorcese lingers on Rupert to give most people time to get it, but it still goes over their head like the cork on the ceiling.
As to the ending, the fact that someone without any talent at all makes it in the media has ’satire’ written all over it. If you take anotherfilm, ‘Natural Born Killers’, some people view it as gratuitous violence. Once again that’s the whole point. It’s a satire on the media (the media that glorifies gratuitous violence). Films need to be viewed from certain perspectives, or points of view, in order to ‘get it.’ Get it?
Too many peole have force-fed themselves a diet of trashy American sitcoms. Good name Sit-Com. Most of the people sit around statically saying one-liners that are so predictable they aren’t funny at all. And ‘Com’ it’s half a word, cos the sit-coms are only half-funny.
It’s the unpredictability of de Niro and Bernhardt’s characters that make them so funny. The funniest jokes are the ones we can’t predict the ending to. If a joke is predictable, it ain’t funny, Rupe! Ya daffy bastard.
Sandra Bernhardt’s character is more concerned with Gerry’s half-finished jumper and whether it fits, or that the colour suits him, than the fact that she has just been involved in a felonious abduction. She doesn’t get it, so we can get it.
That’s the beauty of deadpan comedy. The audience gets all the laughs, rather than films wherein the humour is all for the auteurs and actors, which leave the audience flat.
Critics, however, love that type of prime-time crap. To be a critic doesn’t mean a person has to be critical, or more to the point, a critic can be constructive and remain a critic. There are too many destructive critics out there who just don’t get it.
Get it?
Leopoldo said,
February 5, 2004 at 3:08 pm
I get the satire. I get the jokes. But humor is a very individual thing. What is funny to one person is not to another. Get it?
Ghostdod said,
March 11, 2004 at 10:07 am
I agree with all of what you said, but I have to put stick my tongue out at Natural Born Killers which was a to be a sophmorically contrived film that I found utterly boring. Check out Jon Jost’s deadpan “Frame Up” if you want to see a everything that Oliver Stone wishes he could have done. Yes I understand what he was trying to do but God it’s just a tired old idea. But kudos to you for your other trenchant comments.
kelly said,
September 3, 2004 at 9:48 am
I agree with the points some of you guys have made, I think this is deffinatly Scorccese pointing the finger at celebrity and issues around fame, i really get all that, but from another point of view this is a film. Is this meant to hbe a pleasurable watch, it comes down to the whole argument about weather you want to watch a film for its agenda or for a pleasurable watch. I think in this case the nature of the directors point makes watching the film uncomfortable. If you can deal with the discomfort of witnessing this man’s obsession, then this is a realy good fim. But for me I just couldn’t handle how much it made me squirm.