Back in 2002 the Weinstein Company released the documentary Comedian, which recorded Jerry Seinfeld’s return to New York comedy clubs after the ninth and final season of his cherished NBC sitcom. Over the course of a year, director Christian Charles trailed Seinfeld as he tried out new material at the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village, the Gotham Comedy Club in Chelsea, and other venues, gradually working up a brand-new one-hour set he could take to the concert stage. Comedian‘s narrow focus on the craft of stand-up was relatively novel at the time: Seinfeld, submitting once again to the merciless judgment of club audiences, labors over his material, commiserating with his fellow comics in the bar after each set and endlessly revising every gag to get the biggest response. One leaves the movie with a fresh appreciation of how much skill, judgment, and hard work go into a performance that seems effortless onstage.
Even more than the mental process, Dying Laughing dwells on the emotional demands of performing stand-up, most powerfully in the 20 solid minutes devoted to bombing onstage. Because a stand-up offers the audience nothing but his own thoughts, the rejection can be excruciating. “It’s about as personal as it gets,” Provenza explains. “It’s an existential crisis.” Bobby Lee says he can never remember bombing because the humiliation causes his mind to shut off, as if he were being raped in prison. Felipe Esparza reaches even further inside for the proper simile: “Bombing feels like your dad slapping you in front of everybody at a barbecue. And then you gotta go sit down with your face burning and your eyes tearing up for no reason and pretend like nobody saw shit.”
Directed by Lloyd Stanton and Paul Toogood
