The Martin Scorsese movie that caused him extreme “anxiety”
It might be hard to believe considering his stature as one of the most revered directors of all time, but Martin Scorsese was on something of a downswing during the early 1980s. Although Raging Bull would become known as one of Scorsese’s finest works, the film received polarising reviews and only modest box office returns when it was released at the end of 1980. It had been three years since he released the musical flop New York, New York, and his next film, The King of Comedy, was far darker than its title made it out to be.
Starring Robert De Niro as an obsessive personality who years for fame and respect, The King of Comedy was a pitch-black dark comedy that never shies away from its truly sinister inner workings. In order to more fully understand the character of Rupert Pupkin, De Niro even agreed to meet with a man who had been stalking him for a number of years prior.
“The guy was waiting for him with his wife, a shy suburban woman who was rather embarrassed by the situation,” Scorsese recalled about the meeting in the book De Niro: A Life. “He wanted to take him to dinner at their house, a two-hour drive from New York. After he had persuaded him to stay in Manhattan, [De Niro] asked him, ‘Why are you stalking me? What do you want?’ He replied, ‘To have dinner with you, have a drink, chat. My mom asked me to say hi’.”
The frayed edges that surrounded The King of Comedy were compounded by Scorsese’s ill health and increasing pressure from 20th Century Fox. Scorsese employed some of his closest collaborators, including editor Thelma Schoonmaker and composer Robbie Robertson, in order to simplify the production. However, his hands-on approach continued to cause him problems.
“I got myself into such a state of anxiety that I just completely crashed,” Scorsese recalled in the book Scorsese on Scorsese. “I’d come downstairs from the editing room, and I’d see a message from somebody about some problem and I’d say, ‘I can’t work today. It’s impossible.’ My friends said, ‘Marty, the negative is sitting there. The studio is going crazy. They’re paying interest! You’ve got to finish the film.’”
When The King of Comedy eventually saw the light of day, it bombed at the box office, making just over $2million with a budget of nearly $20m. Scorsese responded by focusing on a much lower budget and a more modest production for his follow-up, 1985’s After Hours. He was still trying to get his dream project, The Last Temptation of Christ, off the ground at the same time. When that film lost financing and entered development hell, Scorsese held off completing The Last Temptation of Christ until he had a hit film, which he finally landed with 1986’s The Color of Money.
Check out the trailer for The King of Comedy down below.
