The Martin Scorsese/Robert De Niro team usually doesn't do much for me (and usually turns out something I loathe), so going into The King of Comedy I wasn't expecting to be impressed. To my surprise, I was not only impressed but came away thinking it was the best work they had ever done together. Working from a superb Paul Zimmerman script, Scorsese and De Niro combine their efforts here to create a satire on the price of fame and what it takes to get there, which also serves as an absolutely hilarious comedy.
Robert De Niro is an actor I was never able to develop a fondness for, almost always finding him to be one of those people who is never able to shed themselves and dive into a role full-on. With rare exception, it always seemed like it was De Niro playing a part rather than the character just existing in it's own accord. Here though, I was amazed by how well he shed his own skin and dove into the role of Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring stand-up comedian who utilizes a forced encounter with talk-show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) as his way to make it into show business. Pupkin is an excellent character to play, filled with narcissism, delusions of grandeur and an absolute blindness to his wealth of personal flaws, and De Niro nails every tick of him.
It's interesting in a lot of ways how the character draws from De Niro's incarnation of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. This is a man who constantly believes that he is doing no wrong, set in his ways and determined to make his plan work. He's a dangerously psychotic man, perhaps even more dangerous than Bickle himself because Pupkin is doing it purely with his own self in mind. Pupkin gives off the idea that he idolizes Langford, but really he idolizes no one but himself and is using this kiss-ass routine to further his own success. He wants to become Langford, to have Langford kissing his toes the way that people do his, and through several fantasies we see those desires play out in Pupkin's mind.
De Niro plays this character brilliantly, taking him on the same way that he would take on Vito Corleone; he never plays Pupkin as a lunatic, never as a moron who the audience is supposed to laugh at. At all times he is believable in the skin of this character and it's a large part of what makes the film work overall. His Pupkin is unsettling more than he is humorous, a grown boy turning into a man who is fascinating and potentially terrifying. I think it's easily De Niro's finest work, but he's still upstaged by the miraculous Sandra Bernhard, who portrays a fellow Langford-obsessed fan that eventually teams up with Pupkin in their big scheme.
Bernhard is a force of nature, getting more laughs in her screen time than most films are able to pack into an entire picture. She is seductively psychotic, absolutely deranged and howlingly hilarious. It's one of my favorite performances, period. She devours this role and her scenes at the dining table with Langford produced some of the hardest laughs I can ever remember having. The film comes around full circle to a final sequence that is intriguing in it's ambiguity, along with it's parallel to the ending of Taxi Driver. Pupkin gets everything he ever wanted, all of the praise and adoration, but as an audience we're left wondering; is it real?
Robert De Niro is an actor I was never able to develop a fondness for, almost always finding him to be one of those people who is never able to shed themselves and dive into a role full-on. With rare exception, it always seemed like it was De Niro playing a part rather than the character just existing in it's own accord. Here though, I was amazed by how well he shed his own skin and dove into the role of Rupert Pupkin, an aspiring stand-up comedian who utilizes a forced encounter with talk-show host Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) as his way to make it into show business. Pupkin is an excellent character to play, filled with narcissism, delusions of grandeur and an absolute blindness to his wealth of personal flaws, and De Niro nails every tick of him.
It's interesting in a lot of ways how the character draws from De Niro's incarnation of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. This is a man who constantly believes that he is doing no wrong, set in his ways and determined to make his plan work. He's a dangerously psychotic man, perhaps even more dangerous than Bickle himself because Pupkin is doing it purely with his own self in mind. Pupkin gives off the idea that he idolizes Langford, but really he idolizes no one but himself and is using this kiss-ass routine to further his own success. He wants to become Langford, to have Langford kissing his toes the way that people do his, and through several fantasies we see those desires play out in Pupkin's mind.
De Niro plays this character brilliantly, taking him on the same way that he would take on Vito Corleone; he never plays Pupkin as a lunatic, never as a moron who the audience is supposed to laugh at. At all times he is believable in the skin of this character and it's a large part of what makes the film work overall. His Pupkin is unsettling more than he is humorous, a grown boy turning into a man who is fascinating and potentially terrifying. I think it's easily De Niro's finest work, but he's still upstaged by the miraculous Sandra Bernhard, who portrays a fellow Langford-obsessed fan that eventually teams up with Pupkin in their big scheme.
Bernhard is a force of nature, getting more laughs in her screen time than most films are able to pack into an entire picture. She is seductively psychotic, absolutely deranged and howlingly hilarious. It's one of my favorite performances, period. She devours this role and her scenes at the dining table with Langford produced some of the hardest laughs I can ever remember having. The film comes around full circle to a final sequence that is intriguing in it's ambiguity, along with it's parallel to the ending of Taxi Driver. Pupkin gets everything he ever wanted, all of the praise and adoration, but as an audience we're left wondering; is it real?