Why "The King of Comedy" Made Us Reevaluate Jerry Lewis as an Actor

Scene from The King of Comedy

It's a premise that movies have done to death. The idea of making a comedian play a "serious role," or against type, has the potential to reach surreal levels that reflects the pain underneath their comedy. Actors like Jim Carrey and Robin Williams would get plenty of credit for it later on. However, there were few whose performances are on par with Jerry Lewis' role in director Martin Scorsese's 1982 satire The King of Comedy. Lewis may have been playing a comedian as the Johnny Carson-esque Jerry Langford, but he's the film's dramatic core, of which separates audiences from the deranged Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro), who tries to get on his show. Over the course of the film, Lewis gives a performance that doesn't only play against type, but shows a complicated side to the clownish actor that may say a lot about him, but mostly proves that he was capable of more than slapstick.

The knowledge of celebrities in 1982 is far different from the gossip mills of 2017. Certain areas of life aren't ever discussed or exploited, in part because the idea of privacy was an important thing to thrive on. Still, later biographies on performers such as Carson revealed that behind the laughter was a very frustrated man in private. Even if there was more than one late night talk show and Langford looks nothing like Carson, there's a certain through line to understanding how real the performance was. When Langford wasn't performing, he was a bit of a curmudgeon; someone with immense power and respect whenever he stepped outside, but secretly wanted to be alone. Was it worth the success to have gawking fans bother you whenever you went to a restaurant? As Pupkin would continually claim "It's better to be king for a day than a schmuck for a lifetime." Langford lucked out in being king of cultural tastes.

There's a lot to admire about the film's form of casting. Scorsese has always loved sticking in old comedians into his films. He would later stick Henny Youngman into GoodFellas for a brief cameo. However, there was something to getting Lewis for a major role. The actor who had decades earlier starred in slapstick comedies alongside Dean Martin, as well as directed his own features like The Bellboy, didn't seem like a plausible pairing with Scorsese. He was coming off of the cerebral Raging Bull and the talent of De Niro was arguably at its heights. Even if the director made a career out of finding odd ways to make comedians dark and interesting, Lewis seemed too classic Hollywood to go for those things. It's part of the brilliance, also in part because of the honesty that can be presumed from the performance. When Lewis died this week, a certain generation didn't go back to the 50's or 60's. They went to The King of Comedy, where Lewis was, to be blunt, playing a different character.

In some ways, the film was a dark comedy and way more violent than what Lewis was known for. Pupkin famously kidnaps Langford when he refuses to let him do a few minutes of stand-up on the show. He doesn't know that Pupkin has a room full of a cardboard cutout audience and a tape recorder or laughter to sustain his delusional dreams. He is the essence of awfulness portrayed brilliantly and tragically as only De Niro could. His clueless optimism feels like a higher brow version of Andy Kaufman while the slow dive into jealous violence is part of the De Niro charm. It's a world not unlike Network, but with more humor and a depravity of idol worship that is ahead of its time. Pupkin is the man who never made it because he was too annoying and untalented. He has no business in show business, yet he tries anyways. His answer? To continually annoy Langford until that happens.

This is where Lewis' charm begins to work. In The Bellboy, he played a bumbling bellboy who witnesses absurd situations happen while reacting with funny faces. He is finding the comedy in mundane situations. In some ways, Scorsese is doing the same thing, only Langford is responding to the absurdity of being tied up with duct tape and being held ransom. For a man with high influence, he is very easy to capture. Gone are the funny faces and in its place is a desperate man, wanting to plea for his life while questioning the value of his career. What can Langford do? It's more than likely that having Pupkin on his show will be seen as a terrible blow to his reputation of quality. As he stares into his captor, he sees a smiling face that he has amused. The only difference this time is that it's a dangerous sort of amusement whose only gratification is to live the dream that is not suited for him.

There's a lot that can be interpreted in the demeanor of Langford leading up to the second act. The juxtaposition of a man whose job is to make people feel less lonely is secretly bitter and wishes to be a recluse. He doesn't like discussing business with people on the street, which is antithetical to the public's perception that he can change their lives. In real life, Lewis had immense influence - including large amounts of fame in France. He was a figure that was expected to make everyone laugh. But who made Lewis laugh? The film suggests that nobody did, and that he was too ornery and self-involved to be anything else. It's a dynamic that shows how wildly different his public and private personas were, itself being a depth that Lewis never really explored on film. 

If there's any comedy, it ironically comes from Pupkin's lack of good tastes. He is in some ways the bizarro version of the real life Lewis. He wears colorful shirts and smiles as he threatens violence. Similarly, Lewis has no power but to respond with shocked gasps and stern negotiation skills. He's not funny anymore, but instead a man who feels that his private life is being violated. He holds his own against De Niro, who was the more reputable of the two. The demented nature of the film only continues to grow as Lewis goes from being a larger than life celebrity to an everyman who is trying to stay alive. Suddenly fame feels familiar as Langford's dignity is marginalized. 

Lewis was clearly a man with a lot of talent that he used for good. To most people, he was the funny face who made bad days less bad. For Scorsese, he was a figure emblematic of fame and the struggles of finding happiness within that persona. The King of Comedy is unfortunately the director's most underrated film and explores the public's perception of celebrity worship in ways few films before really captured. There was plenty of dark humor that made the satire pop with life. Even then, it's hard to think of Lewis in any other light after this movie. It's in part because of how much it feels like a potential real life Lewis. It's also because he created a character who was far more complex emotionally than he ever had before. It's a role that proved that he could do more than make silly faces. He could explore his own pains as well.