***/****
directed by Maija DiGiorgio
by Walter Chaw Bitter Jester is a hard-to-watch record of an irritating, dangerously self-destructive stand-up comedienne named Maija (director Maija DiGiorgio) who, with a video camera and goombah ex-boxer boyfriend Kenny in tow, imposed herself on the frighteningly neurotic underworld of stand-up performers. With the endorsement of Kenny's legend-in-the-stand-up-world pal Richard Belzer and Maija's dead therapist, the pair set out to make a documentary on the effectiveness of throwing oneself at the mercy of antagonistic comedy-club audiences as therapy for working out childhood trauma and pathological personality defects. What results is a surreal, Hunter S. Thompson-esque travelogue wherein we learn that Kenny quit boxing because he had reached "the pinnacle" of the profession (and witness the aftermath of Kenny trying to kill Jerry Seinfeld)–that professional pinnacle being the in-ring murder of one of his hapless opponents. We learn a lot about Kenny because, while the pair wins interviews with a few of the biggest stars on the stand-up circuit (Rita Rudner, George Carlin, Chevy Chase, Whoopi Goldberg, and so on), Kenny is completely incapable of not revealing the breadth of his scary pathology. The tragedy of Maija and Kenny is equalled by the tragedy of these comedians clamouring to be included in this project–many of them solely because they see other people clamouring to be a part of this project. An honest and frightening confirmation of more than I ever wanted to know on the subject of fame and performance (particularly when the picture watches as Kenny joins the rescue effort at ground zero following 9/11 before organizing a benefit for the children of the victims of the atrocity attended by most of the people interviewed), Bitter Jester lends something like an amazing perspective on how complicated a person can be–and, oddly enough, how transforming September 11th was on a collective and personal level.
