Comedian
is a documentary that chronicles Jerry Seinfeld’s rebirth as a stand-up.
After pulling the plug on his brilliant sitcom at the height of its popularity,
mostly to keep it from overstaying its welcome - Jerry also vowed to retire all
his old stand-up material and build it all over again from scratch. This film,
for the most part, is a journal of that process.
You
have to admire Jerry for such a classy move, even though I could have used a few
more years of George, Kramer and the gang, Seinfeld went out on top and turned
his back on 1 million dollars per episode. Comedian is a sporadically entertaining
documentary that tags along with Seinfeld as he struggles to put together new
bits and routines. Stand-up comedy is designed to look like the best job in the
world, though it’s pretty common knowledge that it’s one of the toughest
professions to succeed at. Comedian endeavors to further illustrate what an agonizing,
dog-eat-dog profession it really is.
As
far as being and entertaining film Jerry is even loathe to offer us that much
without making us work. What you aren’t told going in to this film is that
much of the running time is spent following around a relatively unknown comedian
named Orny Adams. Orny, we learn, has been tirelessly pursuing his dream of comedy
stardom for some time and on stage he’s pretty amusing, but off-stage he’s
a whiny, abrasive, overbearing character with an acute absence of people-skills.
He ignores the constructive criticism of the most knowledgeable practitioners
in the business and obsesses over everything to the point of neuroses.
Though
it is through this individual that Seinfeld chooses to illustrate the nature of
the business, I probably would have enjoyed the film more had he chosen someone
else. Then again, I think this was Jerry’s point - even the guys who can
make you laugh when they’re on stage aren’t always the most fun people
to be around when their set is over.
The
film, however, shines when we follow Seinfeld behind the scenes into the seedy
comedy clubs of his early career, and there are alot of hilariously insightful
banter between Jerry and his mate Colin Quinn. One keen observation belongs to
Quinn when he sums up what Jerry is facing on stage with unproven bits - "You
get a little bit of a break up front," he says. "Then you still gotta
be funny."
And
we see this as the hard truth as wild standing ovations, turn to cold silence
when Jerry misses the mark. One particularly uncomfortable scene shows Seinfeld
completely losing his train of thought in the middle of a bit. The audience is
forgiving, until someone hollers, "Is this your first gig?" There are
times when watching a Goliath fall is enjoyable, but when it’s Jerry there
is no fiendish pleasure to be enjoyed, watching him bomb you almost take personally.
Comedian
is not the laugh-fest that the title would suggest, there are plenty of funny
moments and a little too much Orny Adams to be sure, but the scenes where Jerry
is having drinks and talking shop with some of the great comics of all time makes
Comedian a fascinatingly voyeuristic journey
