George Shapiro (Danny DeVito) is in the audience and falls in love with Kaufman, though Kaufman repeatedly pulls pranks on Shapiro, with theirįirst supposed business meeting becoming ostensibly awkward since Kaufman adorns his face with a giant fake booger that Shapiro thinks is real. Headed toward another disaster until he launches into his now famous impersonation of Elvis Presley, which brings down the house. Performance documented shows Andy's deconstruction of that approach (again met with a decided lack of laughs from the audience). Things then rapidly segue again to Andy as an adult, where his "comedy" stylings are met with disbelief and a decided lack of laughs by theĪ club owner (the real life Andy's actual manager George Shapiro, who as a character is played by Danny DeVito in the film - had enough "meta"Īndy by telling him to concentrate on actual jokes rather than what would eventually become known as "Performance Art", and the next To his little sister Carol (played by the real Andy's granddaughter Brittany Bellu-Colonna). When Andy's father Stanley (Gerry Becker) upbraids his son for not interacting with other humans, Andy gives a That sets things off in anĪppropriately skewed way, though things segue quickly enough to something at least aīit more traditional, with a quick vignette documenting Andy as a little boy "performing" to an "audience" consisting of drawn characters Eliot, "in my end is my beginning," or perhaps moreĪccurately vice versa, since Andy then magically makes the end credits roll to a 45 he puts on a turntable. He then informs the audience that, to paraphrase a certain T.S. Performance) welcoming people to the movie about him, while also complaining about its lack of quality and its adherence to the actual story of its
The "meta" aspects of Man on the Moon are evident from the get go, with a black and white Andy (Jim Carrey, Golden Globe winner for Would put another frequently disparaged Jewish boy to shame. "real" and what was part of the "act", which in fact led to a lot of people not believing Kaufman when he announced he was mortally ill fromĬancer, leading to another legend that Kaufman had in fact faked his demise and would be returning, in a veritable second coming that The problem with a performer of Kaufman's intensity and near manic proclivities is that one could never be sure what exactly was
Them, while also attempting, with arguably less consistent success, to peel back the layers of Kaufman's unbelievable persona to reveal the "real" man Kaufman's exploits are legendary and Man on the Moon does a great job in detailing quite a few of There has probably never been a more "meta" comedian than Andy Kaufman, and quite wisely screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewskiĭecided to take their own "meta" (or perhaps even "meta meta") approach with Man on the Moon, a presumed "biopic" of the late (? - moreĪbout that in a moment) performer. Merriam Webster defines meta this way: informal: showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself or oneself as a member of its category : cleverly self-referential. Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 9, 2022
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