Comedian

Last Friday I was able to see my favorite comedian, Jerry Seinfeld, live. And even though he's put out a restraining order against me, I'm still a big fan. But there is something you should know about Seinfeld that your average admirer wouldn't know. After he finished his very successful run with the Seinfeld T.V. show, Jerry wanted to return to standup. Now, at first this may appear to be a simple task. After all he has been doing this for years, he's well known, and has a great following. This is where Jerry did what was unheard of in the comic industry. He "threw away" all of his old material. Material that had made millions laugh, that sold out theatres, and made him rich. To mark this occasion he went on a tour entitled I'm Telling You For the Last Time. If you own any standup material from Seinfeld it's from this album. Here, as the title implies, he used all his material for the last time. What happened next is documented in one of the best and underrated documentaries of all time, Comedian. Comedy is an art form for sure. With all the subtleties, structure, intuition and risks that you find in film, music, or painting. Comedian gives an inside look like no other into what it's like for a comedian to create and write material and then perform that material in front of hundreds of people and hope that they laugh. Good comedians make it look simple but, the truth is it's very hard to make people laugh. Seinfeld started all over. He vowed to use nothing but new material. As the documentary explains no comedian ever uses all new material. Even the veterans. Especially the veterans. They always use their tried and true material to warm up the crowd. Stuff they know will go over well. Then, and only then will they dare to try out new material. This is what made what Seinfeld did so fascinating. He had so much good material to fall back on. Yet, he started over. The movie starts with him working the same clubs in NY that he worked when he (and many others) worked when they were getting started. He would do only five minute sets, because that's all the new material he had. The movie is fascinating if you have ever been interested in what it's like to be a comic or what it's like to perform in front of hundreds of people. The commentary track also includes Jerry, which is almost like watching a documetary on the documetary. I love this film and recomend it to anyone who enjoys stand-up or is a Seinfeld fan.