You might be left wondering who exactly Andy Kaufman was after watching Alex Braverman’s documentary, “Thank You Very Much,” playing at the M.V. Film Center starting March 28. The film examines the career of this iconoclastic American entertainer and performance artist who defies categorization.
Perhaps best known for his role as Latka Gravas on the TV sitcom “Taxi” and his performances on “Saturday Night Live,” Kaufman was loath to call himself a comedian. He certainly didn’t tell traditional jokes. “Thank You Very Much” abounds with never-before-seen footage of Kaufman performing his provocative acts, which included singing, dancing, Elvis impersonations, and perplexing invented characters at any given time. He could come off as zany, self-effacing, or angry, sliding into irrationality, and blurring the line between reality and fantasy.
The film features intimate recollections from many of Kaufman’s friends and fellow performers, who speak affectionately, yet offer no definitive insight into the man. However, Kaufman’s friend and writer, Bob Zmuda, provides a perspective on the significance of a pivotal event when Kaufman was around 4 or 5 years old. As a child, he cherished and formed a deep bond with one of his grandfathers, who passed away unexpectedly. Kaufman’s parents believed he was too young to understand this, so they told him that his grandfather had gone on a long trip without him. In a later interview, Kaufman recounts how unhappy he felt about this, and how he started performing imaginary television shows in his bedroom. This sparked a passion for performing, and at age 9, he began entertaining at other children’s parties, which made him happy. Zmuda suggests Kaufman reconnected with this sense of childhood delight when onstage as an adult.
A crazy lightheartedness permeates all the different personas Kaufman created, as we see in the early clips of his nightclub performances, as well as in those on “Saturday Night Live” and “Taxi.” Yet throughout them all, Kaufman slips and slides from one persona to another. “Ladies and gentlemen, so far everything I have done for you tonight, really I am only fooling. This is me. And everything else was just a character,” says Kaufman, tellingly. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, some of Kaufman’s personas became distinctly unlikeable. There was the crude bully “Tony Clifton,” and Kaufman’s role as a professional wrestler against female opponents. He would relentlessly taunt them, saying their place was in the kitchen and caring for the home and children. This period seemed to mark the beginning of Kaufman’s downward spiral, which culminated with his death from lung cancer at 35. However, there are those in “Thank You Very Much” who offer alternative views that leave us wondering whether Kaufman’s story is truly over.
“Thank You Very Much” opens at the M.V. Film Center on March 28. For tickets and information, visit https://mvfilmsociety.com/2025/02/thank-you-very-much/.
