The one movie Martin Scorsese says he “shouldn’t have done”
The American movie master Martin Scorsese is known for having a hand in almost every single genre of the cinematic landscape. Whilst he is certainly best known for his brooding crime dramas, often starring Robert De Niro, the filmmaker also enjoyed a stint in horror, helming 2010’s Shutter Island and even top charge of a vibrant children’s film in the form of 2011’s comedy caper Hugo.
With all this being said, Scorsese avoided movies that were peculiar, strange and nonlinear, with most of his films being meticulously crafted alongside tight screenplays from the likes of Paul Schrader, Mardik Martin and Nicholas Pileggi. Indeed, some of the most unusual Scorsese movies came at the start of his career in the form of early short films, as well as his curious 1985 comedy-drama After Hours.
But, the early 1980s were a strange time for Scorsese in general, with the director tiring himself out with endless demanding projects. Such wasn’t helped by the looming 1981 writers’ strike, with the filmmaker penning The King of Comedy shortly after he’d completed the Oscar-winning movie, Raging Bull, writing the project whilst still recovering from a harsh case of pneumonia.
“We decided to do The King of Comedy and there was an imminent director’s strike looming,” the filmmaker wrote in the book Scorsese on Scorsese, “Physically, I didn’t feel ready. I shouldn’t have done it and it soon became clear that I wasn’t up to it. By the second week of shooting I was begging them not to let me go on. I was coughing on the floor and sounding like a character from The Magic Mountain”.
Starring Robert De Niro, Scorsese’s social comedy tells the story of Rupert Pupkin, an enthusiastic yet very unsuccessful comedian who craves a place in the industry limelight and is prepared to do anything it takes to get to the top. Winning no Academy Awards, the screenwriter Paul D. Zimmerman managed to grab a BAFTA for his original screenplay, but the film claimed little else in terms of silverware.
Speaking further about his time on set, Scorsese recalled: “By this stage we were shooting every day from 4 to 7pm, for three intensive hours. The whole film took 20 weeks to shoot. The director always sets the pace and maybe a faster cameraman would have got me moving. But I didn’t do it, so what went wrong is really all my responsibility. But I don’t feel anything went wrong in front of the camera”.
Continuing, he adds: “I always felt that between ‘Action’ and ‘Cut’, I was there enjoying it and we had a great time. Rehearsals were good, Jerry Lewis was great and everybody else was terrific. But it was a very strange movie. The scene when Rupert Pupkin turns up uninvited at Jerry’s house was extremely difficult for everyone. It took two weeks and it was just so painful because the scene itself was so excruciating”.
In the contemporary world of cinema, Scorsese’s film is deeply revered, despite its commercial failure at the time of release, making just $2.5million from a budget of $19million.
Take a look at the trailer for Scorsese’s King of Comedy below.
