DIRECTOR: Martin ScorseseIt is hard to argue with the fact that we, as Americans, live in a celebrity-obsessed culture. Glossy magazines like People and In Style breathlessly note each and every movement of the stars who orbit our world, no matter how mind-bogglingly mundane or insignificant these details appear to be. While guiltily perusing these trashy periodicals is a harmless enough activity, there seem to be a high number of people roaming the streets who have difficulty separating actors from their roles, reality from fantasy. I'm forever hearing actors tell anecdotes involving a fan coming up to them on the street and addressing them by their character's name, questioning a decision they made on their television show last week or hissing what an evil bitch they were in their last movie. The celebrities always seem amused by such behavior, ignoring the deeply disturbing undercurrent here: If people are incapable of, or refuse to, differentiate between fact and fiction, then what's to stop them from acting out whatever feelings, positive or negative, that they have towards a particular fictional character on its real world representative? Martin Scorsese's "The King of Comedy" (1983) is a film that focuses on one such unhinged individual, born loser Rupert Pupkin, played with a simmering malevolence by Robert DeNiro.
COUNTRY: USA
WRITER: Paul D. Zimmerman
CINEMATOGRAPHY: Fred Schuler
CAST: Robert DeNiro, Jerry Lewis, Diahnne Abbott, Sandra Bernhard
GENRE: Comedy, drama
MISCELLANY: 109m; won BAFTA Film Award for best original screenplay
"The King of Comedy" is one of the more intriguing titles in the Scorsese canon, if only because of the fact that audiences and critics are so strongly divided on the film. It is an unsettling and somewhat unsatisfying viewing experience, to be sure. Scorsese's direction in the film is strangely anonymous — there are virtually none of his trademark flourishes, and the overall presentation is rather flat. Scorsese approaches the film like a hired hand, creating a cold, emotionally distant film. The performances, while excellent across the board, do not bother to delve below the surface, and we are given virtually no insight into the characters. That being said, I find this to be among my favorite films by Scorsese, though it is not really a Scorsese film, per se. The film was a box office disaster, and it is not difficult to see why. Audiences don't like the camera being pointed at them, and they don't like being mocked. "The King of Comedy" shows us at our most obsessed and sycophantic, and provides no easy solutions or pat reassurances. It is an often ugly film, both in what we are shown and the manner in which it is presented to us. Ultimately though, for a film entitled "The King of Comedy," it's a damn funny movie, though the laughs are mostly at our expense — for we are not as different from Rupert as we might think we are.
The film opens with the intro to The Jerry Langford Show, which seems to be a carbon copy of Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. In fact, the role of Langford was originally slated for Carson, before Scorsese eventually settled on Jerry Lewis. Langford does a bit of banter with announcer Ed Herlihy, the guffawing Ed McMahon-esque second banana — "I'm sorry I woke you, Ed" — and, with only a few visual signifiers, Scorsese has placed us within a recognizable milieu, complete with perky, jazzy theme music (provided by one-time actual Carson bandleader Lou Brown) and a typically random guest list, including Tony Randall and Dr. Joyce Brothers. We then cut to the chaotic scene outside the back door of the studio where the show is filmed, as a shouting, teeming mass of humanity clamor for their idol, Jerry Langford. The grizzled showbiz vet doorman, gruff and blasé, collects autograph books from the eager, outstretched hands of the animated throng. One man yells, "Have him write something personal!", which is a patently absurd request — how can Langford possibly scrawl something personal to someone he has never met? Rupert Pupkin, clearly an old hand at this, presses his way to the front of the crowd, acknowledging the greetings from the various other autograph hounds. Grown men trade signatures like they were little kids trading baseball cards: one autograph seeker tells Pupkin, "I got Rodney Dangerfield and Richard Harris, I'll trade 'em for Barbara (Streisand)," but Pupkin retorts, "It's not my whole life," dismissing the trade request. This statement is an interesting one by Pupkin, and he makes several other similar declarations during the course of the film. Clearly, he views himself as being different, superior. No crazed, one-note fan is he. As Langford exits the studio, the excited mob turns unruly, pushing and shoving each other in a vain attempt to get close to the late-night host. A woman who we later learn is Masha (Sandra Bernhard), a flailing, screaming ball of almost feral energy, forces her way into Langford's limo, her hands pressed up against the window as flashbulbs pop outside on the startled Lewis. The movie freezes on this image, and the opening credits begin to roll. The music we hear over these credits is Ray Charles' "Come Rain or Come Shine," whose lyrics of earnest, steadfast love stand in ironic juxtaposition to the twisted, possessive feelings of Pupkin towards Langford. Later in the film, Masha will serenade a captive Langford with an impromptu a cappella version of the song.
Pupkin, we soon find out, is a bumbling, mumbling walking exercise in passive aggressive behavior. He seems filled with thinly veiled, bitter anger and possesses a possible propensity for violence that lies deep within him, which we get the sense is always on the verge of coming to the surface in an ugly manner. "Comedy," in its first half, alternates between sequences of fantasy and reality, and, at first, we are given no indication by Scorsese when one segment ends and the other begins, which makes for a somewhat discombobulating and on-edge viewing experience. The first of these fantasy moments details a conversation between the now famous Pupkin and Langford, the latter of which is begging Pupkin to take six weeks off from his busy schedule to host the show. This scene is intercut with footage of Pupkin is his basement, acting out this lonely, two-sided monologue. It is both hilarious and creepy, and the disembodied voice of Rupert's mother (Scorsese's own mother, Catherine) telling him to keep the noise down only makes the moment all the more heartbreaking. After much pleading, Pupkin agrees to the favor, and Langford tells him, admiringly, "You're a tough one, Rupe." Pupkin responds, "Well, you gotta be in this business." The duo burst into laughter at Rupert's clever retort. Here we are given our first glimpse of Pupkin's fantasy world, and it is an unsettling one indeed, though our reaction is still one of amusement at this point tempered by a slight twinge of unease.
Pupkin is enamored with Rita (Diahnne Abbott), a high school crush he admired from afar. The two go out on a date, which seems to go relatively well. She's not totally cold to him, and views him as a harmless amusement. Pupkin lugs his autograph book with him to the restaurant (one gets the feeling he takes it everywhere with him), and, beaming with a kind of smug pride, asks her to guess the identity of one of the scribbled autographs. Rita, not recognizing that it is, in fact, Pupkin's own signature, responds, "It looks like a retard wrote this." Rupert is unfazed by this unwitting putdown, and brags to the skeptical Rita about his brief encounter with Langford outside the studio, which he has somehow, in his twisted mind, turned into an invitation from his old friend Jerry to visit for the weekend. The two will make the sojourn to Langford's house, with the expected disastrous results.
Pupkin repeatedly attempts to speak with Langford at his office in person, clad in a garish pastel baby blue suit, his audition tape clutched in one hand. The polite yet firm receptionists and secretaries eventually tire of his stalking act and call on security to forcibly remove Mr. "Pumpkin" (it is a running joke that no one can get his name right, as each person mangles it in a new way) from the premises.
There is one telling exchange between DeNiro and Lewis, in one of Pupkin's fantasy sequences, where a reverent Langford asks Rupert what his secret to comedic success is, and Pupkin responds, "I look at my whole life, and I see all the awful, terrible things in my life, and I turn it into something funny." From this one sentence alone, we get all the back-story on Pupkin we need: We envision his lonely childhood, his invisibility at school, uncaring or absent parents, and so forth. Pupkin's statement seems to be an echo of one once made by Woody Allen: "Comedy is tragedy, plus time."
Eventually, Rupert and Masha, who is only slightly less unhinged than Pupkin, conspire to kidnap Langford and force his producers to allow Rupert to open that evening's show with a monologue. The duo are like a bickering old couple, arguing over whether Langford should be forced to wear a sleeveless sweater that Masha has knitted for him, or what to do with Jerry's chewing gum. DeNiro is clad in the unsightly combo of Panama hat and Hawaiian shirt, and looks every inch the brain-dead goofball. Actors can often feel uncomfortable appearing in a manner that is not particularly flattering, and it is a testament to Robert DeNiro's abilities that he is able to suppress whatever oppositions he had on the subject and throw himself full force into the performance. As Bernhard notes on the documentary that accompanies the DVD, "He allowed himself to be a geek, and that's not easy for a guy like DeNiro."
Rupert gets his wish to be on national television, as guest host Tony Randall, introducing him, is the first person to pronounce Pupkin's name correctly. All of this is done to impress Rita, who watches, bemused, at the bar in which she works, as a proud Pupkin looks on, beaming. The crowd laughs heartily at his painful monologue, as Pupkin details the various humiliations of his childhood. It is hard to tell if they are genuinely amused or merely following the commands of the blinking applause signs like so many sheep. The final irony, of course, is that Rupert Pupkin and his bizarre story become a media sensation, and, after his prison stint, Rupert makes a triumphant return, best-selling autobiography in tow. But is this real either? Since Scorsese has never differentiated between dream and real sequences earlier in the film, why would he know? The ending, as a result, is all the more haunting and disturbing, since we are never really certain what is real, and what is not.
"The King of Comedy" seems to be viewed as a rather minor film in Scorsese's catalog, and while it is admittedly not without its flaws, the film is still a bravura piece of work, for it forces us to look in the mirror at ourselves and confront what we see, a not always pleasant task. A dark and unsettling look at fame and its underbelly, the film is one that still resonates today. After all, how many dedicated followers of celebrity news today would disagree with the closing line of Rupert Pupkin's monologue: "Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime"?
— Theo Wulff
Contact: beshef2000@yahoo.com
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