Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese as a pairing are one of cinema’s all-time greatest dream teams, but one collaboration that is perpetually underrated is their 1983 movie, The King of Comedy. Of all the movies on this list, this one is probably the most anti-comedic. Simply put, it’s like if Travis Bickle was an aspiring entertainer instead of a cab driver.
The film is best understood as a satire on the quest for fame, but the avenue chosen for fame in this instance is stand-up comedy. De Niro plays Rupert Pupkin, a polite lunatic who imagines the most elaborate fantasies in which he and his hero, Jerry Langford, are not only colleagues in the entertainment business but BFFs. This is a story told subjectively, like Taxi Driver, so the perspective we’re shown is distinctly Pupkin’s (it wasn’t until I saw this movie that Taxi Driver actually clicked for me). That means that we’re privy to a special kind of madness that De Niro makes look almost normal, and by the standards of contemporary celebrity fandom, isn’t all that strange.
It ends up showcasing the potentially horrific effects of well-intentioned delusion. It was cringe comedy before there was cringe comedy. As an added bonus, it might also be the best performance of De Niro’s storied career.
Continue reading on the next page…
