Since the early days, Jerry Lewis—in the line of Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel—had the masses laughing with his visual gags, pantomime sketches and signature slapstick humor. Yet Lewis was far more than just a clown. He was also a groundbreaking filmmaker whose unquenchable curiosity led him to write, produce, stage and direct many of the films he appeared in, resulting in such adored classics as The Bellboy, The Ladies Man, The Errand Boy, and The Nutty Professor.
Jerry Lewis - Ein Tollpatsch gewinnt die Herzen, Jerry Lewis: El Hombre Detrás del Payaso, 叛逆者杰瑞·刘易斯
USA
Telluride Film Festival
France
Grand Lyon Film Festival
USA
Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival
Germany
France
Germany
USA
ENGLISH below
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Jerry Lewis steht in der Tradition des Goldenen Zeitalters der Slapstick-Komödie und seiner Stars wie Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton und Stan Laurel. Seine Pantomime-Nummern und sein burlesk-bissiger Humor machten Lewis, der am 16. März 1926 in Newark geboren wurde, zu einem der einflussreichsten Filmkomiker aller Zeiten. Aber Lewis war mehr als nur ein harmloser Clown: Er begeisterte sich für die Kunst der Filmkomödie und wurde zu einem ihrer Meister. Er schrieb, produzierte und drehte Filme, in denen er meist die Hauptrolle spielte und die heute allesamt als Klassiker gelten, wie „Hallo, Page!“, „Zu heiß gebadet“, „Der Bürotrottel“ und „Der verrückte Professor“, um nur einige zu nennen.
Link zur Dokumentation (deutsch) auf YouTube:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-9Uz0vvWHQ&ab_channel=IrgendwasmitARTEundKultur
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This is one of two documentaries about le roi du crazy released in the 2010s. The other one, Method to the Madness of Jerry Lewis had more footage of modern-day Jerry going about his life, plus a lot of A-list interviewees. This more concise documentary focuses on the work itself, with a lot of clips from his movies, commentary by a lot of critics (including Jonathan Rosenbaum) and a few celebs (Martin Scorsese and Sean Hayes, who played Jerry in a TV movie), as well as scattered reflections from the 90-year-old Jerry and some choice archival bits and pieces, such as footage of Jerry being praised by Louis Malle in the '60s. Did I like it? Of course I did.
solid little doc on jerry lewis. lots of archival footage, movie clips, and mugging. rosenbaum, scorsese, and the french as talking heads. "who does this guy think he is, chaplin?" comedy from pain and imagination.
"The American critics are full of shit. They have no idea what I'm doing. They never have."
Funny to include him saying this at the end, as it's only evidenced by the majority of the interviews in here & also the general perspective the film itself takes. I typically avoid these sort of docs because of their tendency to conflate art with the psychological and the biographical, something which is typically reductive in the hands of someone who'd even be interested in making something like this, and especially in Lewis' case something that does nothing but steamroll anything of actual current value and morph it into a mystified, unapproachable, behind museum glass nostalgia object. The image illiterate joint-misreadings of The Errand…
I was going to watch this after my Marathon du film Jerry Lewis, but I figured, "You know, they probably aren't going to focus on anything past The Family Jewels anyway. And I was right!
I am in a Jerry frame of mind these days, so I suspect I'd like any documentary on him. And I was right!
Concise and full of nuggets of insight. If you had to watch one doc to understand Jerry's importance and genius, this might be the best one to start with, actually.
Never thought I’d be interested in watching Jerry Lewis. That’s the thing with clowns: they’re more complex humans than we give them credit for.
I was interested in what was they had to say about his holocaust clown movie but none of that delivered…
It was was cool to see his filmmaking and influence in France, but clearly you wouldn’t know that from the poster or what the title implies…
It’s almost like a VH1 documentary, interviewees in warm settings talking up their respect, while clips play to make a point of what’s being discussed…
A very manly film…
Docking it a star for the poster…
BRILLIANTLY put together, edited super smoothly with a treasure trove of archival footage; just about everything Jerry says is invaluable and worth noting down. I sure as shit started crying seeing the old and frail Lewis do his charity fundraisers singing but I cried even harder watching him look through old photographs and talk about missing Dean Martin and being sentimental. What a guy.
The only issue I have with this is the brief runtime that steers this away from something more about, y'know, the man behind the clown, opting for tidbits about his life but devoting a lot of time to his relationship with the French and why American critics are dumb. As it stands though it's an amazing and touching tribute to one of the greatest of the greatest. I cracked the fuck up at just about all of these clips.
Entertaining one-hour documentary that very quickly takes a look at the life and career of Jerry Lewis. Through interviews with Lewis as well as the likes of Martin Scorsese we get to see the ups and downs his career went through.
It seems that the main goal of Gregory Monro's documentary is to explain why the French believe Lewis is a genius and why American critics are idiots for not knowing that. The documentary gives us a very quick overview of Lewis' career and we hear about his days on stage, his time with Dean Martin, his solo career and then his dramatic role in THE KING OF COMEDY.
It's clear that Lewis hates American critics and manages to throw…
