Milos Forman
Man On The Moon

A man on the moon. Because there was no place for him on earth. Andy Kaufman.

A person outside the lines, outside the logic of show business, unpredictable.

Milos Forman directs a fantastic Jim Carrey in the film adaptation of the life of Andrew Kaufman, a revolutionary comedian of the seventies-eighties. But what did I write? comedian? No, hell no. "I'm not a comedian. I'm a song and dance man, I'm a showman. I'm not a comedian, I've never told a joke in my life." And it's true, Andy wasn't just a comedian. He was much more.

Andy Kaufman, after a long grind in the classic cabarets of small clubs, where he struggled due to his eccentric, innocent, and disconcerting comedy, not well comprehended by the audience, found success thanks to the character of the Foreign Man, the foreigner, who would later be renamed Latka. In this act, Kaufman was an awkward character from Eastern Europe with an improbable English voice who horribly mimicked famous characters (he would typically speak to the audience with a specific tone of voice, only to continue using the same tone after announcing the imitation), making himself ridiculous, and then, having changed attire and manners, winning over the until then hesitant crowd with a perfect imitation of Elvis Presley (Elvis himself admitted that Kaufman's was his favorite imitation).

During these shows, he was noticed by manager George Shapiro (Danny DeVito), who managed to get him into the cast of the sitcom Taxi, giving him mainstream success. Andy hated sitcoms, so the production had to accept several conditions to get him. One of these was the constant appearance of Tony Clifton.

Tony Clifton is another of Kaufman's brilliant characters. An irascible man, with dark glasses and a mustache, ready to upend any show idea with his destructive force. Tony Clifton was Kaufman, but not only and, above all, not always. Sometimes it was his friend Bob Zmuda who portrayed him, so the audience sometimes found themselves face to face with both Andy and Tony, and for a long time, Kaufman managed to confuse the audience and make them believe Tony Clifton was a separate person.

This continual confounding of the audience, not letting them know where the show ends and reality begins, is Andy Kaufman's greatest lesson and his most specific characteristic. He acted primarily to shake up television standards, to amuse himself and confuse those who couldn't follow him. And as is usual in this world, when a person is not understood, they often begin to be hated. Kaufman repudiated the pure and simple character of Latka. He did not want to be labeled only for that character. So during his shows, rather than selling himself cheaply, he preferred to read the entire "The Great Gatsby" by F.S. Fitzgerald, convinced that he could entertain his audience this way, which instead regularly ended up disappointed.

Andy Kaufman also organized the world inter-gender wrestling championships: he thus challenged women, considered by him (jokingly?) inferior, in actual wrestling matches, where he consistently beat his rivals. The highest point of the show, however, was reached by the challenge of a man, Jerry Lawler, a professional wrestler, who wanting to punish Kaufman’s misdeeds, soundly defeated him in a match that continued with words and with "blows" of coffee on Saturday Night Live, while Andy continued to provoke the women. The SNL audience banned Kaufman from the show, but in reality, even the encounter with Lawler was part of an astute ruse by Andy.

Milos Forman confirms himself at the highest levels in directing a difficult film, with the arduous task of recreating the scenic tension that Kaufman managed to enact. The director manages to perfectly recreate the atmospheres created by the showman, to capture his deepest intents, to outline the various stages of Andy Kaufman's life, from his most hidden desire to propose himself initially, to his inability to understand the poor level of the television audience, to the end, with the prevailing of a bitter optimism. Jim Carrey probably offers his best performance: he could be the only new Andy Kaufman, he could be Andy Kaufman. A mention deserves the soundtrack curated by R.E.M., with Stipe also producing the film.

The endless creativity of Andy Kaufman faded in 1984, at just 35 years old, due to lung cancer. His life, a continuous conning of his audience, made them believe, and makes them believe, that he even staged his death. But the sad truth is that we have probably lost a fantastic interpreter of life, always ready to amaze and reaffirm that from a genius one should expect nothing, because our expectation will be consistently disappointed, catapulted into a higher world, perhaps understandable only by geniuses, as Andy was. A sad, misunderstood, fabulous man.

A man on the moon.