The King of Comedy (Film Review)

1983 20th Century Fox/Embassy International
Directed by: Martin Scorsese; Written by: Paul D. Zimmerman
Starring: Written by Paul D. Zimmerman Starring: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Tony Randall, Diahnne Abbott, and Sandra Bernhard
MPAA Rating: PG; Running Time: 109 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 9/10

Aspiring comedian, Rupert Pupkin, is an irritating fellow. He's the kind of guy who doesn't take the hint and leave when you say goodbye. He just hangs around and won't go away, especially if he's in the lobby of a late night talk show where he's not welcome. One night, Rupert somehow weasels his way into the limo of famous comedian, and talk show host, Jerry Langford. Huge surprise--mouthy Pupkin can't take the hint when it's time to leave the limo either.
Pupkin, whose very name is infuriating to type, thinks that in lieu of working his up through the comedy club circuit, he can jump straight to the top by appearing on Langford's show. Langford, saying anything to get rid of the buzzing fly that is Pupkin, tells the wannabe jokester that maybe some time they'll get lunch. What anyone else would take as a curt and final goodbye, Pupkin takes as a gesture of friendship. Next thing you know, he's not only parking himself in Langford's show's lobby with an audition tape, but in Langford's living room.
At first, I found Martin Scorsese's The King of Comedy amusing, but off-putting. The way Pupkin's character has replaced any semblance of an actual social life or real friend circle with celebrity-worship most definitely feels relevant today. After all, how many times a day does someone retweet a celebrity's 280-character political statement with a self-satisfied "these are my people" smirk in lieu of actually having a real discussion with real people that they actually know outside of a computer? Half of the stories on Yahoo right now are solely-comprised of celebrity tweets, and the corresponding response tweets from us commoners, who will never actually personally interact or have meaningful, connecting discourse with those respective celebrities--celebrities whose day-to-day lives don't resemble the daily lives of 99.9% of the rest of the planet's humans in the slightest.
Scenes of Pupkin looking at photos of moments from Langford's show, then pontificating about their importance as if they've had some seismic significance and connection to Pupkin's own life are at once pathetic, and sadly relatable. And yet, all Pupkin wants is to be in that inner circle of celebrity and fame. He just doesn't want to do the back-breaking work of starting from the comedic bottom and working his way up...which makes him all the more irritating...and all the more identifiable.
Robert De Niro plays Pupkin with all of the motormouthed, exhaustive energy he can muster. Pupkin can't take the slightest hint when he's not wanted, and De Niro underplays any offense Pupkin might feel to perfection--in fact, Pupkin worships his celebrity heroes so absolutely, he's almost incapable of being upset with them. Even when he's kidnapping Langford, and demanding time on his show in order for his release, he's never very malicious, and entirely apologetic about it. Jerry Lewis, as Langford, brings the necessary equal amounts of bigwig arrogance and exhausted celebrity. While it's silly for De Niro to worship Langford, it's also silly for a needy fan to yell at a late-and-can't-stop Langford that she "hopes he gets cancer."
Speaking of needy fan, the cast is rounded out here by a truly wacky Sandra Bernhard, whose character is perhaps even more obsessed with Langford than Pupkin. Pupkin might want to use Langford to gain his own fame, but Bernhard's crazed fan just wants Langford...and when she gets guard duty as a part of Pupkin's kidnapping scheme, maybe sing him some songs...
With all this nuttiness and ugliness, up to the kidnapping, I felt a major component was missing from The King of Comedy: empathy. Sure, there are annoying elements of Pupkin's character that the viewer can connect to inasmuch as they're satirical of viewers own bad behaviors, but nothing that can truly make one feel for him. Pupkin's just a weasel who won't stop pawing...
but then, in the final 15 minutes, Scorsese and screenwriter, Paul D. Zimmerman, do something revelatory, in a scene that not only gives backstory to and recontextualizes everything that came before, but greatly humanizes Pupkin's poor, broken soul. There's a seven-minute stretch that, in a career filled with accolades, might be De Niro's greatest performance, or at the least, the performance that's drawn the most emotion and sympathy from me for one of his characters.
So, here I am, talking about how a movie that satirizes the way non-celebrities relate to celebrity culture has greatly effected me. What a damn hypocrite! You got me, Scorsese. Again.