3 minute read
The King of Comedy
The fame monster rears its ugly but hilarious head in Martin Scorsese’s brilliant and prescient comedy, The King of Comedy (1982)
Rupert Pupkin is a wannabe comedian who dreams of being in the spotlight. After a chance encounter with his comedy idoltalk show host Jerry Langford - he plots to kidnap Langford in order to take the spotlight for himself.
“In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes.” A quote attributed to Andy Warhol, there’s actually been many variations of the sentiment throughout history. It’s now almost a cliché to reference the cliché in today’s age of YouTube and social media. Everyone and their grandmother can broadcast themselves to the world. Sure, everyone now has a voice and can share their life with us, but that’s also the downside. This need for attention is in a lot of us, and not everyone is a star or even talented enough to enter the spotlight. That doesn’t seem to matter these days. In 1983, writer Paul Zimmerman and director Martin Scorsese touched on, and even predicted, the evolution of this phenomenon by introducing us to Rupert Pupkin.
Robert De Niro as Pupkin was a very different role for the great actor. He had spent the seventies playing tough guys but here, he’s playing an out and out dork. Jerry Lewis was also doing something different. Known for his comedies and screw ball characters, here he is serious and guarded. He plays a man that has shot to the top but sees that it is a lonely and even dangerous place regarding fandom. Lewis understood the material, his life mirroring the life of Langford albeit without kidnapping. Scorsese had envisioned legendary talk show host Johnny Carson for the role but he passed. Completing the trio of main characters is Sandra Bernhard as the even nuttier and manic Masha. She almost steals the show in her breakout performance giving as good as she gets.
The movie is shot very simply, Scorsese established himself as a filmmaker with great bravura and a flair for the set piece but here, he wanted to give it a flat televisual look. It’s almost reminiscent of a sitcom. Boy is it funny though. We see Pupkin’s interactions with different people and they all invariably fall apart under the cringe they induce.
Cringe comedy produces some of the greatest laughs but man, it can be hard to endure. There are sequences that are so excruciating to watch; Pupkin’s persistence and passive aggressiveness tests everyone’s patience. Fans of Sacha Baron Cohen and Larry David will lap it up.
The King of Comedy failed on its release. There may be a few reasons for this - Hollywood was changing and personal movies like this were starting to be sidelined. There is also its ambiguous ending But there is also a sense that it was ahead of its time. The world has always had Rupert Pupkins. “Better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime” is what Pupkin says to an audience. Its both an inspiring outlook and a word of caution. If you haven’t already, stop being a schmuck and check out this underrated classic.
