MoviesWithX Review of The King of Comedy

The King of Comedy (1982)

"Better to be king for a night, than a schmuck for a lifetime."

[7/10 · 20 January 2023]

This was definitely a fascinating movie to me in regards to see what lengths some people will go in order to achieve fame, and perhaps to make any dreams that they have come true. Some of which were admirable, whereas others I seriously have to draw the line and would hope others would too. I thought De Niro was excellent as Rupert Pupkin, as this struggling comedian desperate for fame. His character Rupert is friends with a woman named Masha, played by comedienne Sandra Bernhard. I didn't know she was actually acting this far back, but that being said I thought she was really good in this, and kind of creepy to be honest. Truthfully, I found her to be much creepier than Rupert. Rupert wants desperately to appear on The Jerry Langford Show as a guest and Masha is a super-obsessed fan that loves Jerry. It kind of makes sense that they're friends, given their narrow-focused obsessions towards the same person, albeit for different reasons. Jerry Langford is played by none other than the late Jerry Lewis. I'm very young, so I haven't seen any Jerry Lewis movies but I thought he was fantastic in this one. There's also a woman that Rupert is involved with played by Diahnne Abbott who does a fine job as well. I do feel like this movie is well directed by Martin Scorsese, and it looks really good too. I even like the set design of the reception area of Jerry Langford's office. There's another scene where Rupert is standing with his back turned in front of a huge blown-up black-and-white picture of a crowd and the camera pans out while a soundtrack of laughter is playing over the scene that I thought was mesmerizing to look at. I'll say that the themes in this movie are relevant today in a lot of ways, and all the more perhaps with the advent of social media. But it's real easy to see where the movie is going based upon its set-up. And the ending to me does compromise because it doesn't commit to what I thought was going to be the ending. Don't get me wrong. It's a movie and I can live with the ending they chose but at the same time I was like "yeah, right". But it was definitely an interesting character piece by Scorsese for sure.