An sinister essay on the worship of celebrity culture, with the clear implication that, when it comes to the famous, were all stalkers, The King Of Comedy is a bona fide classic, directed by Martin Scorcese during his brilliant period of collaboration with Robert De Niro. Aspiring comedian Rupert Pupkin gets to meet his hero, Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis, playing a kind of Jay Leno style comic-turned-talk-show-host), and turns the encounter into a delusional basis for believing that his big break has finally arrived. Convincing himself that Langford and he are best friends and collaborators, Pupkin is knocked back time and again until he takes a more confrontational approach and kidnaps his hero, demanding ten minutes at the beginning of that nights show as his ransom. While Pupkin gets his shot at the big time, his accomplice, the equally loony Masha (played by the equally loony Sandra Bernhard) guards the man himself, having finally achieved her dream of getting a date with him although hes gaffa-taped to a chair in a basement, but what love is ever truly perfect? The film shows Ruperts opening act going down a storm with the audience but then, Ruperts unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and were not to know whether what we see is what actually happens, or a representation of what he sees. In the same way, upon his release from prison we see bookstores jammed full of his autobiography, and a news report hailing him as a genius but which also, creepily, calls Langford his mentor and his friend. Whether thats in his head or not is left up to us to interpret.
Professional writer, punk werewolf and nesting place for starfish. Obsessed with squid, spirals and story. I publish short weird fiction online at desincarne.com, and tweet nonsense under the name Jack The Bodiless. You can follow me all you like, just don't touch my stuff.
