The King of Comedy

It’s fair to say that some of director Martin Scorsese’s best movies are about lonely men, at war with themselves and with the world around them. Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver is a classic example. So is Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. In both of those films, Robert De Niro portrays Travis and Jake as emotionally isolated human beings, driven by a furious desire for some kind of recognition; to be seen, and to fight their way free of the snakes that haunt them.

If there’s a case to be made for a third Scorsese film to make a trilogy of his fascination with such desperate men, for me it must be 1982’s The King of Comedy. Once again starring Robert De Niro, the movie is about a struggling, hopelessly untalented New York comedian named Rupert Pupkin who has delusional dreams of breaking into the big time. But Rupert has no concept of how delusional he is.

Rupert’s spiral into madness would be terrifying if it also wasn’t so funny.

Instead of practicing his comedy routine in real nightclubs, Rupert sets up a stage in the basement of his mother’s house, where he still lives, and pretends that he’s a guest on a popular TV talk show. Rupert surrounds himself on the set with life-size carboard figures of other celebrities and laughs and interacts with them as if they are real and all of America is watching. The only time that his crackpot fantasy of being on TV is shattered is when his mother yells from upstairs, wanting to know who he’s talking to. Rupert’s spiral into unsettling madness would be terrifying in these moments if it also wasn’t so funny.

What’s also unsettling about The King of Comedy is the way that it predicts and satirizes the growing obsession with celebrity that would soon devour much of our culture. And Rupert’s obsession with it is the match that lights the dynamite of the plot. Working with another celebrity fiend portrayed by actress Sandra Bernhardt, Rupert hatches a plan to kidnap Jerry Langford, the hugely popular host of a late-night TV talk show.  The plan is that Langford will only be released once Rupert’s been allowed to go on the show and perform as The King of Comedy. In a wonderful dramatic change of pace, comedian Jerry Lewis portrays Langford as a weary prisoner of his own celebrity.

At times, The King of Comedy is a difficult film to watch. You feel uncomfortable as Rupert can’t stop himself from acting out the pathology that haunts him, the overwhelming desire to be recognized as someone. De Niro is brilliant in the role as he disappears inside Rupert’s skin and becomes another lonely Scorsese hero at war with himself and the world.

I give The King of Comedy four out of four stars.