The Jerk (1979)
Directed by: Carl
Reiner.
Written by: Steve
Martin & Carl Gottlieb & Michael Elias.
Starring: Steve Martin (Navin / Cat
Juggler), Bernadette Peters (Marie), Jackie Mason (Harry Hartounian), Catlin
Adams (Patty Bernstein), Mabel King (Mother), Richard Ward (Father), Dick
Anthony Williams (Taj), Bill Macy (Stan Fox), M. Emmet Walsh (Madman), Dick
O'Neill (Frosty), Maurice Evans (Hobart), Carl Reiner (Carl Reiner The
Celebrity).
Watching
The Jerk, I couldn’t help but reflect on what makes a movie funny and what
doesn’t – and how hard it can be to explain that. I couldn’t help but reflect
on it, because one of things I was not doing while watching The Jerk was laugh
– I just didn’t find very much of anything in the film very funny. In general,
I think Steve Martin is a funny guy – and the director is Carl Reiner, who is
also funny. It’s got a good supporting cast – including the wonderful
Bernadette Peters. Yet the one moment in the film that actually got a laugh
from me came from M. Emmet Walsh – who has a small role – and it’s when he gets
so upset that Martin’s character ignored the sign that said “Carnival Personal
Only” – and starts screaming about it. I’ll admit that the infamous line “I was
born a poor, black child” also probably would have gotten a laugh from me had
it not been as famous, so as to be spoiled when I sat down to watch The Jerk
for the first time for this series. The rest of the movie though produced nary
a chuckle from me – and this is from a film that the AFI named one of the 100
best comedies in film history. Really? I guess.
The Jerk
is one of those comedies that doesn’t bother with things like plot or character
– it’s what (I think) Roger Ebert would call a clothesline comedy – in which
the plot is really just a clothesline to hang jokes from. If the jokes are
funny, these comedies can be hilarious – in fact they can funnier than other
comedies, because they dispense with all the idiot plots comedies run through,
and get to the stuff people actually remember. But when they don’t work, they
are deadly – because there’s nothing else to fall back on. It’s impossible to
care about the plot or the characters, because the movie doesn’t have any.
The movie
follows Martin’s Navin R. Johnson on his journey – from his roots as a poor
black child, to his adventures working in a gas station in St. Louis to working
at a Carnival, to falling in love with Marie (Peters), with becoming a
millionaire because of a stupid invention – and then losing it all, and ending
up back where he started. This was Martin’s big foray into movies – he was
already a comedy superstar, but that transition to the screen didn’t always go
so smoothly. He co-wrote the screenplay, and it seems to me, that Martin knew
his audience well, and knew what to give them. It also seems to me that Martin
used his stardom to get as far away as possible from more movies like The Jerk
as soon as he could. His next starring role – also alongside Peters – was in
Herbert Ross’ brilliant, funny but melancholy musical Pennies from Heaven
(1981). While throughout the 1980s, Martin would continue to make comedies –
they weren’t as random as The Jerk.
The
problem with The Jerk to me is just how obvious every joke in the movie is. In
his review of The Jerk, Roger Ebert called the film a “Funny Hat” movie, in
which we in the audience are supposed to laugh at the film simply because the
main character is wearing a funny hat. There’s no reason he’s wearing it,
nothing to relate to, it’s just a guy wearing a funny hat. And that’s true.
Every joke in the movie is simple minded and obvious, and is another example of
Martin wearing a funny hat. I think the film thinks it’s doing something clever
throughout – it certainly sets up jokes one way, and then does something not
quite expected (like what happens when Martin attaches a rope to a car and a
church) – but the twist isn’t really any more original than the more mundane
version would be.
Martin’s
performance in The Jerk reeks of effort – which is the opposite of what
Martin’s charms normally are. He is one of those guys who makes being funny
seem effortless – like he’s barely trying. Here though, his every movement –
every vocal tic – seems aimed at getting a big laugh, and as a result, I never
really did laugh at him. Peters fairs slightly better – under giant blonde
hair, she’s essentially playing the “ditzy blonde” – which she does well, I
guess.
I do
recognize that many people find The Jerk to be hilarious – and that, to a
certain generation, it is a seminal comedy. Perhaps that’s the problem – that
I’m now too old for The Jerk’s juvenile humor to be funny, and too young to
look back at the movie with any sense of nostalgia – since it opened two years
before I was born. Or perhaps The Jerk just isn’t funny.
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