Man on the Moon: the act behind the man
Man on the Moon's big draw isn't Andy Kaufman. That would be too big a gamble, as his comedy takes a refined sense of humor to appreciate, to say the least. Likely, Milos Forman was aware of this, so he tried to shift things ever so slightly, away from Andy Kaufman, to the legend of Andy Kaufman. America did love Eddie and the Cruisers, after all, which was all about legend. And of course--talking pop recognition--Taxi is nearly as much a part of our sitcom-reality as M*A*S*H or Cheers, meaning Latka is already a familiar character. The bad thing is, though, without the prompting of Man on the Moon's trailer, the bigger part of today's audience wouldn't have known it was Andy Kaufman in those shuffling white coveralls and the thick accent. Meaning he's only achieved 'legendary' status for a select few. So, in spite of what Milos Forman might be trying to do here, the big draw of Man on the Moon finally isn't Kaufman-related or even Jim Carrey-related, but Forman-related: we go on the chance that he's cooked up another Cuckoo's Nest, another Amadeus, something like Larry Flynt.
And for a while, too, it seems he has. First of course there's Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman, likely one of the few actors who could have captured Kaufman's body language and diction so precisely. Second there's all the nostalgia involved with getting the old Taxi cast back together again for a few scenes (though Danny DeVito's presence as George Shapiro is a little disorienting at first). Third, there's the opening, which functions both as a timid disclaimer (accuracy vs. dramatic necessity) and adds a little meta-dialogue to the mix. Same kind of stuff you get in Private Parts, only this is Milos Forman, thus it's all done just a little better. Unlike Private Parts, however, we don't mire around in childhood too long, but cut quickly out of it, to Kaufman's career, which of course functions as something of a biographical lens: nevermind the 'draw' of Man on the Moon--once we're there, the focus for Forman is the intriguingly inconsistent (tender, self-destructive, etc) character of Andy Kaufman. The idea is that Man on the Moon will explain why a man would wreck his career by wrestling with women, will get to the bottom of the whole Tony Clifton thing, will do with a person what Cronenberg did with reality in eXistenZ: layer it to the point where you don't know what's real, to the point where you can't tease Kaufman away from his comic personas.
Which is to say Forman gets us to initially ask those questions, to be interested in the real Kaufman even if we don't think he's funny, which is no small feat. But then he takes it just a little further, sets Man on the Moon up so that we're willing to trade in those answers we so want if Andy Kaufman can just make it out alive somehow, in the movie version (the 1995 Scarlet Letter tack). Inaccurate as Man on the Moon self-consciously claims to be, though, it doesn't go quite so far as to change the documented facts, which, while respectable, also introduces some dramatic weakness (see Insider for more like this). Thing is, right at the point when we need to think Kaufman might pull through, we already know he's many years gone. Which siphons a lot of the tension out of it all. Granted, Forman does muddy the waters up some, (some of that dramatic license) which does make the closing frames quite beautiful, but too, they may just be beautiful in comparison to the thirty-odd minutes that preceded it. Too, however, this is a problem endemic to all historically-based movies; it's not just local to Man on the Moon. And there is a way out: you simply have to make all the documented facts hinge upon the in-between parts you make up, which is where Forman stumbles a bit. Yes, he does take a different slant on the Kaufman-Lawler fiasco and various other things, but rather than pushing the drama ahead, they explain what just went on. So, yes, there is some marked dramatic weakness to Man on the Moon, but still, it is Andy Kaufman on the big screen at last. Perhaps some oversight is excusable. And who knows, maybe Andy would have even wanted it this way.
(c) 1999 Stephen Graham Jones, http://www.cinemuck.com
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