The King Of Comedy.
"It’s better to be king for a day, than schmuck for a lifetime."
These are the immortal words spoken by Rupert Pupkin as his final sendoff, thus concluding the biggest break he’s ever had. Such a cathartic moment, and you realize that this was it. This was everything in life that the character had built up to. So many times he imagined how this moment would play out in his head. Rupert finally got precisely what he set out for. You, as the audience member, are both happy for him just as much as you are enraged at what he did to get there.
The King of Comedy is a film chock-full of mixed emotions throughout. There are so many layers, so many moving parts. So many times where you find yourself both cringing and laughing. It’s a movie about comedy, but there are hardly any jokes. You laugh at the discomfort. You are helpless. You are watching at the edge of your seat. It is the most uncomfortable thing you have ever witnessed, and yet you cannot look away. Roger Ebert once described it best, "This is a movie that seems ready to explode – but somehow it never does."
It follows the story of Rupert Pupkin (the name might not mean a lot to you, but it sure does to him), a struggling comedian who just wants to be famous. He begins to scratch and claw his way into Jerry Langford’s life however he sees fit. Whether this be breaking and entering, refusing to leave his office, bombarding him on his way home. There are no limits, and no routes. This film follows Rupert’s journey. His objective is simple. He must become the new "King of Comedy."
But that’s just the surface. The film also stands as a case study of why we idolize celebrities, and the whole notion of a man like Jerry Langford (played by Jerry Lewis) not even being able to walk down the street without being worshiped/mobbed. The film is an excellent piece on the relationship we share in our heads with the people we watch on TV Johnny Carson was famously seen as the man "who we went to bed with each night." In this world, that man is Jerry Langford.
But who is Rupert Pupkin? Is he an obsessed fan of Jerry Langford’s, or is he a conniving opportunist? Is there any real affection behind his deranged ways? Psychologists could spend hundreds of years analyzing what lies beneath the performance that Robert De Niro brilliantly gives here. In the blink of an eye, the character can go from awkward and seemingly innocent to completely deranged.
Most amazingly, there are moments where he can be all of these at once. For instance, at one point, he is meeting with Jerry Langford’s assistant, who is asking him to come back the next day. However, Rupert just stands there insisting "I’ll just wait here for him," after repeatedly being asked to leave. There’s something so innocent on the outside, yet dangerous brewing underneath in this moment. You know that something is coming, and you find yourself placing bets inside your own head as to when all hell is going to break loose within Rupert Pupkin.
By and large, this is the darkest film Martin Scorsese has ever made. However, when Robert De Niro first presented him the script, he wasn’t so convinced. "I felt like it was just a one line gag. 'You won’t let me on the show, so I’ll kidnap you, and you’ll put me on the show,'" director Martin Scorsese later stated. However, after completing Raging Bull, he revisited the script, and at that point had a better grasp on it. "It’s a violation. It’s the way the paparazzi shoots pictures of you. Bulbs and the shutter of the cameras are bullets... I made a clear decision immediately when I decided I wanted to make the picture. A clear decision to make no difference between fantasies and the reality."
As a character, Jerry Langford is very intricate. You have to wonder just what the character on the page was like, and just how much of the character was brought by Jerry Lewis. For both better and worse, Jerry Langford is Jerry Lewis, make no mistake about that. "It was doubly frightening because I was watching myself play a real life moment in my life," Jerry Lewis said of his portrayal in a 1983 interview. "The insipid idiocy of the fan as the fanatic. And watching myself, 'celebrity,' being annoyed and literally harassed by that maniac. It’s frightening." People give so much credit to Robert De Niro for his performance, but without the reality of Jerry Langford, in all of his anger and bottled-up rage, the film wouldn’t have half of the charm.
Also of note is Sandra Bernhard’s fantastic turn as Marcia, who was Rupert’s accomplice/fellow-worshipper of all things Jerry. Her performance leads to some of the funniest scenes in the movie, including her one-on-one dinner with Jerry Langford, which is just as entertaining as it is downright creepy and disturbing.
One of the key moments in the film has Jerry Langford walking down the street. He walks with purpose, yet is constantly being stopped. One particular case leads to one of the most memorable lines in the entire film (which we'll not spoil here). This scene is pivotal, because it shows everything that you need to know about The King of Comedy. This is the world we live in. Just because we see somebody every night on TV, we are so quick to associate them with our lives. Thus the human condition is to bring that complete stranger into our stratosphere, so we can have our moment of fame. That’s what is accomplished best here. It shines a light on this world that so few people would be able to see otherwise.
So, you’re probably wondering, "A film so damn dark, how can it be funny?" Well, that’s it right there. Comedy and tragedy, it’s often been said, go hand in hand, and that comedy is born from tragedy. And that’s why this film is surprisingly funny. I recently sat down and revisited the film with a full audience, and the laughter was infectious throughout the room. Even during the scene where Rupert Pupkin breaks into Jerry’s house. This could easily be the darkest hour of any other film, with not a single laugh. However, you just find yourself laughing. It cannot possibly be explained. You just have to laugh.