Comedians on film on DVD
With the recent release of The Aristocrats, a new documentary about a very rude
joke as told and reflected on by around a hundred or so famous comedians, maybe
it's time to cock an eye at some of the best movies about comedy and those
tortured souls known as stand up comics.
King of the hill has to be Martin Scorsese's The King Of Comedy (1983), an
inspired film about a little man with big dreams. Robert De Niro plays the
titular figure, Rupert Pupkin, with all the charm and danger of a man
possessed. And possessed – or rather obsessed – he is, is dear Rupert. When his
swag of bad jokes fails to get him a gig on 'Jerry', a network tonight show
hosted by Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis in his first fully-fledged dramatic
role), Rupert decides to take things into his own hands. With an equally
unhinged accomplice Marsha (Sandra Bernhard), Rupert kidnaps Jerry, holding the
star hostage until he relents. The King Of Comedy is a darkly humorous and at
times disturbing comment on our obsession with fame, which eerily predates
today's age of gaining celebrity through reality TV comps.
Jim Carrey goes back stage in Man On The Moon (1999), shedding some light on
the life and times of enigmatic American comedian Andy Kaufman, who died young
aged 35 of lung cancer. (The final twist of irony in his utterly ironic career
– he didn't even smoke). While best known as the star of 70s sitcom Taxi,
Kaufman was an abstract-absurdist who swam against the 'boom tish' hack humour
of the time. Directed by Milos Forman (One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest), this
biopic is a bit too straight and narrow, with Carrey's performance bordering on
creepy. Nonetheless Kaufman's story is a compelling one.
Lenny (1974) is a masterful film about one of stand up comedy's true greats,
Lenny Bruce. After starring in The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy and Straw Dogs,
actor Dustin Hoffman was on a roll when he tackled the crusading comedian,
playing him with frightening authenticity, a foul-mouthed anti-hero trapped
somewhere between egoism, brilliance and drug addiction. (Superman's Valerie
Perrine also gives the performance of her career as Bruce's 'on again off
again' spouse Honey.) Inspired theatre director Bob Fosse (Cabaret, All That
Jazz) brings his characteristic sense of perverse and passion to this real-life
story, which, like all of his movies, superbly treads the fine line between
stage and cinema.
And if you like comedians who tell it like it is, you can't go past the late
and very great Bill Hicks, the Lenny Bruce of Gen X. A force to be reckoned
with, like Bruce Hicks also took on the hypocrisies of American culture with a
fierce sense of anger, intelligence and outlaw humour. He was one of the
funniest men alive until his premature death in 1993, aged 33. But this rock
god comedian lives on in DVDs like Bill Hicks Live, which features searing live
performances and the inspired documentary about his short life, It's Just A
Ride. Vale.
- Megan
Megan Spencer has spent way too much of her life in the dark, all for a good
cause though - watching movies as a professional film critic. For the last six
and a half years she has been serving the ever-increasing hunger for film and
DVD reviews as radio triple j's resident film critic, and a year ago joined the
new line up of long-running SBS-TV film review program, The Movie Show.
Every now and then she pops up into the light to make her own films,
documentaries (her latest is 'Fantastic Brutality', a documentary about an
obsessed wrestling fan, to be released next year). She has also written about
film for many publications including J-Mag, Limelight, Inside Film Magazine and
the Age Green Guide.
And the impossible question to ask a film critic: what's her favourite film?
"Blue Velvet would be at the top of the list, so would Fight Club... But then
again American In Paris makes me cry every time."
Megan has also been part of the Foxtel's Project Greenlight Australia as an
on-air panelist and judge.
