MovieChat Forums > The King of Comedy (1982) Discussion > The mural of the audience

The mural of the audience

posted 7 years ago by mattjoes (53)
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What did you think of the moment when Rupert is practicing his routine in front of the mural of the audience?

It's a fascinating, strange image. The mural is clearly not in his basement, but in his mind. It seems to symbolize a mixture of reality and fantasy, or the halfway point between them. We see a representation of what Rupert is imagining (the audience), but instead of seeing a real audience, it's a flat, lifeless image, as if reality and fantasy "crashed" into each other.

The space to the sides of the mural is interesting, too. In his mind, does it go on forever, or does it end a few feet further on each side? It's not that the filmmakers necessarily designed it that way to symbolize anything, but it's intriguing. I see it and I want to know what's over there.

[–] MissMargoChanning (6630) 7 years ago

I was just watching this movie. I had never really thought about this on previous viewings. I always assumed that he had the chairs and the cutouts for his talk show down in his basement..... why not a mural of an audience on the opposite wall?
Today, I did notice that when he is facing his audience, the floor is wood like a theater stage. That struck me as odd in a basement like that.
You make some interesting points. Do you think that his talk show set is in his mind as well?

[–] mattjoes (53) 7 years ago

I don't think the talk show "set" is in his mind. It seems feasible to me that, being so passionate about the whole thing, Pupkin took the time to decorate his basement in the way it's presented on the screen. However, the mural and the hallway, in their appearance and size, seems physically incongruent with the rest of the basement, and disconnected from it. Also, in the mural scene, we hear the audience, a subjective touch that is absent from the scene with the cardboard cutouts, in which Pupkin also imagines things but we don't hear them or see them. To me, that further emphasizes the difference between these scenes and the fact the mural is in his head but the talk show set is not.