The big problem with the film was that it failed to explain the why of Andy's behavior. Producers could have focused on a two-three year period in Kaufman's career. This would have been so much more interesting. Instead the film stands as Carrey doing a Kaufman impersonation of events and things that we already know... Missed opportunity.
Anyone else feel this way?
Not really. How could you possibly explain Andy Kaufman? Either you got it or you didn't. There are no words.
sharePerhaps, but the film stands more as a reenactment of Kaufman's shenanigans and various stunts. There is absolutely ZERO insight into any of them or him for that matter.
shareHaving watched and enjoyed the episodes of Taxi with Andy Kaufman as Latka I was intrigued when Man on the Moon came out.
But the film, if one is to accept it as a kind of biography on Kaufman, basically revealed him to be a ginormous azz hole.
I didn't mind Kaufman's eccentric behavior or his bizzare comedy style. I think that was just the way he did his act. But the crap he would pull on his own family - pretending to be dying and whatnot, that was just too much. In the film his own family had gotten fed up with his antics and were leary of any new sob story Kaufman came up with. When told of his "death" or "illness" you can see they were just so exhausted with him already.
This whole notion that tricking people can be funny only carries you so far. Sooner or later you're gonna piss people off. And you're gonna piss people off even more when your comedy routine is as lame as Kaufman's evidently was.
The more I watched the film the more I thought that Kaufman might have been suffering from some mental defect.
It seems that he had this idea of what he thought was "funny", and he was so totally convinced that it was "funny" that nobody could get him to see just how unfunny he actually was. On practical application his comedy routines were mostly flacid. Original? I guess. Offbeat humor? Most definitely. But was it really funny..? I guess that depends on who you ask.
His ideas of staged antics during interviews could be very funny if executed well. But Kaufman didn't.
The idea of wrestling females by pretending (or not pretending) to be some chauvanist I can also see as being funny if executed well. And here again Kaufman didn't.
Someone also mentioned Kaufman's ability to command some influence with certain tv shows with incredulity. That I totally agree with. I don't see how it was even possible for someone like Kaufman to get away with some of the crap and cheap theatrics he did. But whatever...
The parts of the film I thought that were really moving was the close friendship between Danny DeVito and Kaufman. It comes through very clearly that these two were such good friends and colleagues. This film might have been a love letter to the late Kaufman by his friends. For that reason alone I would say the film does a nice job at providing an inside look into Kaufman.
This film is for his friends. And that's it. Anybody else is basically outside looking in like someone on this message board already stated.
Why is this post on every thread?
shareAsinine and idiotic post. You try to assert your opinion, one that is not shared by a large amount of fans and people who worked with Kaufman, as some sort of fact.
Andy Kaufman did not suffer from some sort of mental disorder. If you assume that this movie is a documentary, I suggest you realize it is just a movie that tells you immediately that it is not a 100% accurate portrayal of Kaufman's life.
Andy Kaufman was known to be an extremely professional man behind the scenes. Sam Simon, who was the executive producer of Taxi, denied that Andy behaved poorly on the set and said that Andy never hid the fact that he was Tony Clifton. Andy informed the producers of this fact before they ever saw him as Clifton.
But the crap he would pull on his own family - pretending to be dying
His ideas of staged antics during interviews could be very funny if executed well. But Kaufman didn't.
The idea of wrestling females by pretending (or not pretending) to be some chauvanist I can also see as being funny if executed well. And here again Kaufman didn't.
This film is for his friends. And that's it. Anybody else is basically outside looking in like someone on this message board already stated.
The idea of wrestling females by pretending (or not pretending) to be some chauvanist I can also see as being funny if executed well. And here again Kaufman didn't.
I agree. I remember when Kaufman first came out and I thought he was kind of funny up until the "Fridays" incident, because by that time I could never figure out if he was serious or not. The Tony Clifton character was too abrasive, and eventually his act was just a series of practical jokes that made people too uncomfortable to be in on the "joke." So years after his death (actually I'm still not convinced he is dead), I hoped for the film to at least give some insight, but I still don't find him funny. Some people claim to be more clever than others because they "get" him and most don't, but I don't find a re-creation of his act to be helpful. I would like to think that in real life he wasn't a difficult and annoying jerk, but with the exception of the last five minutes or so, I didn't get that feeling.
Signatures annoy me.
From what I've read, he was somewhat less difficult and annoying in real life than he was in the film. The problem was this movie was made by people who were close to him and who were more interested in making Andy into a legend than being accurate. For instance the movie shows him reading The Great Gatsby in its entirey to an audience when in reality that was only a short bit, and it shows Zmuda in the audience at the Tony Clifton performace after Andy's death when really it was Zmuda performing as Clifton. Heck, Andy's brother pulled a hoax in 2013 about Andy still being alive. The people behind this movie were interested in the mystique and in tricking the audience, not being real.
Would've been much better if the story were told more objectively, but I still don't think there would've been a "why." Someone in another thread suggested Andy probably had a personality disorder, and I think that's very likely, but since he wasn't diagnosed with that in this lifetime, it's a bit of a moot point. He was an unusual guy, but he wouldn't have had any friends, loved ones, or success at all if he was really as alienating all the time as this movie wants you to believe.
The people behind this movie were interested in the mystique and in tricking the audience, not being real.
I feel it did. He acted the way he did because he felt it was funny. He also felt that it was what he was good at and that it was something that nobody else was doing.
It showed how he felt about sit-coms (until he realised the exposure he could get for him and Tony) so he did something that was the opposite of that. He didn't just pump jokes out and didn't use canned laughter. (How he'd do that in a stage act I'm not sure.)
He did what everybody should do, he did what he enjoyed doing himself. You see numerous film makers saying things like 'I make films I enjoy watching and if other people like them too then that's great.' There is a great John Lennon quote; "Being honest may not get you a lot of friends but'll always get you the right ones." Andy was true to himself and he certainly gained a following. The SNL poll proved he didn't have a huge following but he could damn sure trust that 28% that voted for him.
Granted, the film could have easily gone into the idea more but to say it failed to is wrong in my opinion.
Well, he did say at one point in the film that the audience expects him to surprise them and that he always has to stay one step ahead of him.
This is one of my favorite movies, but I agree it doesn't delve too deeply into Andy's personality. Maybe there's not really that much to know. The movie is more of a history of Andy's act than anything.
I do.
I also don't blame Jim Carrey for his performance either. It was inspired on many levels, but I could tell by the writing and Milos Forman's framing that the entire movie flowed like a linear biography that aspired to literal recreations of what already happened. The movie seems intent on the build-up of Andy creating the ultimate joke on the audience, not his audience just those who were aware and intrigued by him, and when it results with him dying of a rare cancer the punchline is neither ironic nor compelling. The next to final scene where Andy goes to the Philippines to get cured only to see that it's all quackery seems like a soft landing of an ending.
For my money I think I would have preferred a script written by Charlie Kaufman. He seems to have a knack for themes that deal with false pretenses, self-deception, self-motivation, and wanting to fit in. Andy had many of those qualities and I think Charlie could have mined Andy Kaufman's biography to come up with a compelling recreation of how Andy not only thought about comedy, but how he viewed himself as an artist.
I totally agree. Furthermore, I feel Jim Carrey's performance was a mere caricature, which was more a narcissistic ode to Carrey's own approach to comedy than anything having to do with Andy Kaufman.
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it failed to explain the why of Andy's behavior
To Love and win is the best thing. To Love and lose, the next best.share