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The King of Comedy (1983) is about a wannabe comedian named Rupert Pupkin (Robert De Niro) whose single-minded pursuit of fame and obsession with star comedian Jerry Langford (Jerry Lewis) leads him to kidnapping the talk show host in order for a shot at being “King of Comedy” for a night. The film focuses on the cult of celebrity and the sort of delusion it has the potential to inspire. The Rotten Tomatoes Critics Consensus points out, “Largely misunderstood upon its release, The King of Comedy today looks eerily prescient, and features a fine performance by Robert De Niro as a strangely sympathetic psychopath.” But what was it about the movie that prevented it from being an instant hit?

One thing that jarred a large amount of moviegoers at the time was the change in tone and content matter between The King of Comedy and the Scorsese/De Niro collaborations that preceded it. The illustrious duo had just released Raging Bull (1980), arguably their Magnum Opus, and were known for their violence and masculinity-driven projects like Taxi Driver (1976), Mean Streets (1973), and New York, New York (1977), where Scorsese examined violent and insecure yet virile and complex characters portrayed by De Niro. Not only was The King of Comedy a departure from this dramatic material; it also represented a far more nuanced and esoteric project than Scorsese had attempted previously. Audiences had come to expect a film with more fireworks than Scorsese and De Niro dished out in The King of Comedy, and were largely disappointed by a film that was stylistically and thematically inconsistent with the duo’s previous projects.

However, as time moved on and the ideas communicated in The King of Comedy stayed relevant, audiences and critics came to appreciate the dark comedy for its insightful observations and comedic value.

Scorsese is delicate and deliberate in ensuring that every aspect of the plot reinforces the protagonist’s and our collective cultural obsession with fame, and the film’s indictment of our celebrity obsessed culture is perhaps now more relevant than ever. In the opening of the film, we see a swarm of autograph hounds waiting for Langford to appear. As Pupkin is discussing trading autographs with someone else who is collecting signatures, Pupkin derides their pastime, saying, “It’s not my whole life, that’s right. It may be yours but it’s not mine.” The comment illustrates his established reputation within this fame-obsessed community, as well as his inflated sense of self-worth and implied assumption that he is better than his fellow autograph hounds.

The opening credits are revealing as well. They pause on a frame that shows Pupkin looking through the splayed fingers of Masha (Sandra Bernhard), peering into a life he so desperately craves, while Masha is literally clawing at the door in an attempt to be closer to Langford. Pupkin, despite never having performed his act for anyone but the imaginary audience in his basement, is “absolutely convinced” that he’s “dynamite” and urges an impatient and unimpressed Langford to show him the secret passage to success. Next we are shown the first of many occasions when Pupkin fantasizes about hypothetical instances wherein Langford needs him to step in and host the show; the imaginary Pupkin is initially hesitant but begrudgingly accepts. Later, when Pupkin is being forced out of Langford’s home with his date Rita (Diahnne Abbott), she takes with her a memento in her purse, in a frame that lasts for less than three seconds. Even in her embarrassed state, Rita wants to have a memento to remember this celebrity experience. Pupkin’s continued attempts to get his tape in the hands of Langford at his offices demonstrate his tactless yet fervent pursuit of fame at all costs, which is later confirmed by the elaborate kidnapping. Noticeably, Pupkin’s name is consistently misspelled or mispronounced throughout the film, highlighting the anonymous nature of this character in a world that refuses to take him seriously. This constant belittling and disrespect signal to Pupkin that he is a nobody unless he’s known by everybody and motivate his attempt to seize celebrity status through kidnapping Langford. Every character in this film is either directly involved with, jaded by, or is desperate to become a part of show business, and their collective failures, vanities and delusions demonstrate the futility of the whole situation.

Aside from the cultural importance of the movie, Langford, Bernhard and De Niro all deliver superb performances that make the film worthy of merit solely from a comedic standpoint. De Niro’s “sympathetic psychopath” character is consistently funny, whether he is yelling at his faceless mother, sloppily replacing cue cards for his kidnapped idol to read, or running Benny-Hill style around Jerry’s office, desperately in search of fame. Bernhard succeeds in playing a passionate and fiery-tempered heiress who hilariously attempts to seduce a tied-up Langford, and Lewis’s dry and exasperated take on Hollywood’s dark side is refreshing and unexpected. And while it’s filled with humor, The King of Comedy is dark and hard to digest. With Scorsese, viewers had come to expect grand-stand finishes to his films, yet here Pupkin is taken into custody without a fight, eventually gaining fame and admiration despite his dubious methods. The whole movie is imbalancing and surreal, which is dangerous territory for a big name movie to tread. In general, audiences like to know what they’re getting into when going to the movies, so the fact that The King of Comedy is too dark to classify purely as a comedy movie and too funny to be considered a dramatic one ensures that most viewers are apprehensive and skeptical about what it is they’re watching.

What made the hard-to-classify, genre-escaping The King of Comedy difficult to digest upon its release is precisely what made it a classic years later. An unexpected and deep examination on celebrity culture was not what moviegoers felt they had a right to from Scorsese at the time, but in the years that followed it aged well and came to be recognized as an impressive achievement, both in a cinematic and cultural point of view.