The film's introducing credits foreground a claustrophobic vignette seen from the inside of a car: palms pressed against glass, flashing camera lights, and bemused faces looking in from the outside. The unrequited nature of the anachronistically soothing melody, I'm gonna love you/Like nobody's loved you/Come rain or shine, is not lost on the audience as the chimaera of celebrity is intelligently explored by Scorsese in this subtle masterpiece.
In short, The King of Comedy is about two stalkers, Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) and Masha (Sandra Bernhard), of comedian Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis), who successfully carry out their plot of kidnapping Jerry in exchange for Rupert gaining air time on Jerry's talk show and Masha having her dream date with Jerry. At just over two hours, Scorsese's film is not so much reliant on its action as on its development of psychological themes. It richly delves into a World of Interiors, emphasising Rupert's delusions of becoming a renown stand-up comedian by matching their intense ferocity with a psychedelic colour palette and a big-band score. Action in real time is fluidly punctuated with scenes from Rupert's dreamworld. It is a compelling world in which he gets the recognition he feels he deserves, and unlike in reality, will at least be appreciated rather than overlooked. He is the King of Comedy, ordained by the godlike authority of Jerry, and to preside with his Queen.
The way in which caustic actuality intersects with sweet heartfelt attempts not to be crushed creates a lot of humour and also pathos in The King of Comedy. It's wince-inducing when Masha declares her love for Jerry while he's bound to a chair and rolling his eyes at her in the candlelit atmosphere. There's comedy during the kidnapping bit when Jerry is being forced to read cue cards to someone on the phone with a gun to his head and some of them are upside down and don't quite make sense.
In a carpe diem kind of way, in his moments of fame on Jerry's stage, Rupert Pupkin says that it's "better to be King for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime". But maybe he is still being a schmuck even on that stage by wanting to become a celebrity with all the harassment that it involves? Also is being a King even worth it if Jerry's assistants were willing to risk his life by not airing Rupert? All in all, this is one brilliant anatomical dissection of celebrity culture.
With thanks to https://thedissolve.com/ for the image.
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