Thursday, December 23, 1999

'Man on the Moon' glows with genius

Just this week, The National Enquirer ran a story headlined "Andy Kaufman Really Is Dead!" accompanied by a copy of the comic's death certificate, dated May 16, 1984. That rumors still persist that perhaps Kaufman faked his own death and might still show up as, say, a surprise guest on Letterman, is somehow a testament to how good his act really was. Kaufman always kept his audience - and sometimes friends and family - guessing.
   Kaufman does live on, of course, in that endless loop of reruns known as cable TV. Thanks to Comedy Central and TV Land, new generations can keep discovering him on old episodes of "Saturday Night Live" and "Taxi." But highly entertaining though they are, these random snippets of video don't do much to explain the real man behind the goofy accents and put-on characters.
   The new film "Man on the Moon" (now playing) peels away only a little of the facade of Kaufman the comic provocateur. But by concentrating on the magical quality of his best-remembered performances - the naive Foreign Man, belligerent nightclub weasel Tony Clifton, Andy the wrestler of women - it does create a fascinating picture of a genius whose art was about being completely and utterly unpredictable.
   Director Milos Forman and screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (the same trio who made "The People vs. Larry Flynt") examine Kaufman's life by charting the highs and lows of his career.
   As a beginning stand-up comic, he's an enigma, willing to risk getting booed off the stage for the sake of making a boozy audience snap to attention and feel something, even if that something is unrestrained disgust. Kaufman gleefully lip-synchs two lines of "The Mighty Mouse" theme song on "SNL," then tortures a hostile college audience by ignoring their requests for "Latka" (his "Taxi" character) and reading "The Great Gatsby." Every word up to "The End."
   Locked into five years as Latka, velvet handcuffs for an experimental thinker like Kaufman, he invents the oily Clifton character, and demands a separate dressing room for him.
   Nobody else did this stuff back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
   The closest thing to Kaufman working today is Jim Carrey and it's amazing that in a Hollywood known for its gigantic casting blunders (remember George Clooney as Batman?), he's been allowed to portray the lead in "Man on the Moon."
   Carrey doesn't just impersonate Kaufman, he inhabits him, understands him, maybe even channels him. They are twin souls, these two funny men, the type capable of childish pranks one minute, extraordinary poetic gestures the next.
   The beauty of Carrey's performance isn't just in his right-on Kaufman slouch or whispery Kaufman delivery. It's in his eyes, sweet, sad and searching for the few around him who truly get what he is doing.
   Three who did get Kaufman were girlfriend Lynne, played with soft sensuality by Courtney Love; his manager George Shapiro, played with feisty affection by Danny Devito, who also produced the film; and co-writer, co-conspirator Bob Zmuda, played by Paul Giamatti.
   From its Kaufmanesque opening scenes to its old-fashioned, blatantly sentimental ending, "Man on the Moon" is no small movie. But it's one giant leap toward keeping Andy Kaufman's memory alive.
   "Man on the Moon" is rated R for profanity and a brief sexual situation involving prostitutes. Media critic Elaine Liner can be reached at 886-3688 or by email at linere@caller.com.
  
  
  

 
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