Comedian

Released 2002
Featuring Jerry Seinfeld, Orny Adams, Colin Quinn, Bill Cosby, Jay Leno, Chris Rock, Garry Shandling
Directed by Christian Charles

This film provides a fascinating look into the life of a comedian. In fact, we peer into the lives of two comedians, Jerry Seinfeld and Orny Adams. Who is Orny Adams? He's the opposite of Jerry in just about every way possible, which allows us to compare two comedians on the opposite ends of success. Jerry is the undisputed king of comedy due to the success of the greatest tv show ever, but he later retired his old material. That was a good thing, because it had been mined so heavily on his series. This movie follows him around for a year while he comes up with new material, and it follows Orny while he tries to break it big. It's amazing how hard these guys work to get each word, nuance, gesture and pause just perfect. It seems so effortless while they're on stage, but that's an image that's carefully sculpted over many tortuous nights.

Orny provides a bundle of intentional and unintentional laughs. He's a complete mess and must be both manic-depressive and obsessive compulsive, but he's definitely funny. The best scene in the movie is when Barry Katz tries to give him advice. He tells him he has the professional side down, but he needs to work on his humility. Naturally, Orny's too arrogant to listen to this advice, and after Barry leaves he asks his manager, George Shapiro, why he let him say those things. George has a classic response, "There was nothing there I would refute," and Orny looks away. This is a great moment that perfectly sums up Orny's life, but there's good news for him. If you watch the extras on the DVD, it's obvious he was horrified by his image on screen, and he had changed. I've always thought the best thing you could do for your own personal growth would be to have a documentary made about yourself. Robert Crumb watched his and said he didn't want to be Robert Crumb anymore, and I think it's obvious Orny Adams had the same experience.

The DVD is loaded with two commentaries, two hilarious interviews with Jiminy Glick, deleted scenes, the Letterman spots for Jerry and Orny, and all of the advertising material including the funniest movie trailer ever created. Although the point of the movie is to document the standup process instead of showcasing standup performances, there's still a lot of funny on stage material. My favorite joke was one of Orny's:

There was a time when women couldn't vote in this country, and then we had a vote to see if they should be allowed to vote.... How'd we lose that f***ing thing?

Summary by Bill Alward, October 11, 2003

 

 

 

1