Jerry Lewis was an iconic filmmaker. A comedian, writer, director and all around jack-of-all-trades, he remains high in the pantheon of twentieth century filmmaking. Dubbed ‘The King of Comedy’, he was an influential comic whose unique style and boundless creativity made its mark on comedy. Across films such as The Nutty Professor, The Ladies Man, and of course Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy he carved a singular place for himself in film history.
The King of Comedy
Comedy has long been regarded as a lesser art form than highbrow drama, so it can be easy to not look too closely at Jerry Lewis’s art, and just appreciate its entertaining value. He was also derided in the United States for the high regard in which he was held in France (he received the Legion d’Honneur, France’s highest honour in 1983). Perhaps this was because the French had had filmmakers like Jacques Tati and Pierre Etaix whose comedy was inseparable from their astonishing filmmaking skills, so there was a category within which to appreciate filmmakers like Jerry Lewis.
It is a less known fact that alongside his more than seven-decade career, Jerry Lewis also had a career as a film teacher and lecturer. From 1967 onwards, he taught at the University of Southern California. Some of his students included George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. An anecdote goes that when he screened Spielberg’s short film Amblin, he said ‘That’s what filmmaking is all about.’
Jerry Lewis, A Total Filmmaker
After a few years of teaching, in 1971, Jerry Lewis published the book ‘The Total Filmmaker’, based on nearly 500 hours of recordings of his lecturing. It became a staple book for any film students and aspiring filmmakers, but quickly went out of print. This year, Michael Weise Productions is releasing a 50th anniversary edition of the classic 1971 book in association with the Jerry Lewis Estate, with all-new, never-before-seen photos of Jerry on set and with his family and friends, and a new foreword by film critic Leonard Maltin.
Covering all the steps of filmmaking in depth, from script to postproduction, it covers the complete arc of filmmaking as taught by one of the first and most original writer/director/producer/actors in Hollywood. This book is both a filmmaking manual, and a way to reevaluate Jerry Lewis’s place as a filmmaker. He was indeed a ‘total filmmaker’, what he qualifies as a someone with command of his craft, but also an artist who had things to say and knew how to embed them in all aspects of the filmmaking process.
Long-hailed as one of the best filmmaking textbooks, and not available since 1971, this new edition is a terrific, invaluable resource for any filmmakers who want to dive deep into the process (their own and that of Lewis). While the book sometimes feels like a time capsule to a different time (rare is the filmmaker using celluloid nowadays), the truths peppered throughout the lectures are still relevant. The process hasn’t changed. The book now includes scripts, notes and storyboards from the filmmaker’s archives which only heighten the necessity of owning this opus.
The Total Filmmaker is now available from MWP.
Baptiste is a writer hailing from the part of France where it is always sunny. After a stint in politics and earning his Master’s Degree in Management, he was a marketing intern for the 23rd Raindance Film Festival in 2015, then joined the team permanently in 2016 as the Registrar of the MA in Filmmaking. He is passionate about diversity in film, which he researches and writes about extensively. He is the producer of the hit webseries “Netflix & Kill” and the multi-award-winning short film “Alder”, as well as a writer for stage and screen. His short film “U Up?” is currently in pre-production.
