This movie was a difficult watch. It was definitely a very good watch, but it was also a very frustrating one.

Recently I’ve been on sort of a Scorsese kick but specifically focusing on his non-mob movies that I haven’t seen yet. I feel that it’s very easy to classify him as “the guy who made ‘GoodFellas’” or “the guy who made ‘Casino,’” but it’s clear to me that there is definitely more to his work than rise-and-fall mafia dramas.

“The King of Comedy” details the shenanigans of Rupert Pupkin, a former autograph hound, stand-up comedian in his own mind and stalker of late-night talk show host Jerry Langford. Pupkin aspires to one day perform on Langford’s show despite his lack of talent nor current employment and spends nearly the entire runtime desperately trying to get in touch with him, even through force as we see by the end. I thought Robert De Niro was perfect in the role of Pupkin, in fact, my frustration with this movie actually stemmed from how great his performance was. His portrayal of Pupkin as a bumbling, narcissistic loser was so effective that I actually felt secondhand embarrassment watching him over and over beg and plead with Langford’s staff to just let him see “Jerry” for just a couple of minutes. On that same note, Jerry Lewis’ performance as Langford actually really surprised me. I have never before been impressed with his work and his comedy has never made me laugh, but in this movie he’s a really fantastic serious actor and is the perfect foil to De Niro’s role of “sympathetic manchild.”

I also really liked the editing style, the passing of time is played with very loosely as night is bounced to morning, morning pivots to the next day and the day swings back to night again. It almost had a low-budget feel despite the movie’s price tag of an estimated $20,000,000. The constant switching from Pupkin’s fantasies to reality is something else I really enjoyed, I felt that it was truly the most “comedic” part of the film (a movie about comedy). I read on Wikipedia that the Talking Heads song “Swamp” (a personal favorite from “Speaking in Tongues”) would be featured in the movie, but I didn’t hear it at all even though it’s on the soundtrack album. Maybe I missed it!

Overall, I felt it was a pretty good movie but I would definitely prefer “After Hours” to this one. I do recommend the movie to those looking to get into his films that have sort of flown under the radar.

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https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085794/