Cult Corner : The King of Comedy (1982)
Cats: cult corner|The King of Comedy (1982)
Starring: Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard
In honor of today’s Birthday Twins!
The King of Comedy is one of Scorsese’s lesser-known works, but one of his edgiest. It’s very dark humour tells a visionary tale of a celebrity-obsessed culture decades before Britney and blogs. It’s a bit of forgotten Scorsese, and oddly is way more in touch with today’s world than that of the time in which it was made (no remakes, pleeeaase!!).
De Niro and Bernhard star as obsessed fans stalking a surprisingly real Jerry Lewis. The entire production has a savagely brutal point of view and humour to it; the Clash even make a cameo!
It’s not a film really easy to describe, but it’s kind of a companion piece to Scorsese’s other early 80s nightmare comedy, After Hours. It stays away from the broad stereotypes of Scorsese’s more mainstream work like Goodfellas. If you like edgy, intelligent and really, really black humour, you definitely need to seek this out.
