Comedian
This is a movie I can watch on infinite repeat without ever tiring of it.
It is a documentary, the camera a doting hanger-on of Jerry Seinfeld as he strikes out on his own and attempts to reformulate an entire act. He retires all of the bits that made him famous and goes to various comedy clubs in New York to work out new material, eventually settling into wider orbits and taking his embryonic act to exotic places like East Orange, New Jersey.
Also, the film decides to follow another comedian, a young guy named Orny (a waitress at one point says, “No mother would name their child Orny”) Adams. His story serves as a counterpoint to Seinfeld’s; Orny’s raw ambition (and considerable dearth of talent) often irritates viewers, but his emotional transparency and his underlying insecurity seem to me to be a wonderful window into the basic personality of comedians.
The breathless, angst-filled struggle to craft fledgling ideas into fully formed acts stems from an animating, discontented force that pushes from the inside out. The opening line of the film features a gentleman (who I ashamedly do not recognize) noting the “compulsion” that drives comedians to get on the stage and dangle themselves in front of a teeming swarm of carnivorous jackals, the artist unsure if his efforts will result in humiliation or fleeting glory.
This basic tension is even apparent when Seinfeld (who is the most popular comedian in the world) takes the stage. He forgets his punchlines, stumbles through jokes, loses track of which bit follows another. Colin Quinn, who is a recurring figure in the film, explains it (roughly) this way:
“Ultimately, [stand-up] is closest to justice. Not that it is ultimately just, but it is closest to justice….You get about five minutes of grace. Even Jackie Gleason, who everybody loves, only gets about five minutes. After that, people are like, ‘Jackie, if you’re not making us laugh, [get out of here].’”
This basic tenet, that the merits of a work of art ultimately dictate how it will be received, is something that gives hope to artists everywhere. If the work is good, people will take note of it, whether you’re unbelievably famous or a starving nobody. This is something that I think we all want to be true, need to be true, in order to continue to make our small contributions to our artistic spheres without spiraling into some sort of nihilistic self-pity.
Also, as you can guess, the movie is also pretty funny, which is what you would expect from a film that features Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Kevin Nealon, Colin Quinn, Gary Shandling, Robert Klein, and Bill Cosby (in varying degrees and to myriad effect). The most startling thing, every time I watch Comedian, is not how much I laugh, but how much I learn.