“He’s More a Painter, Maybe, Than a Director”: Jean-Luc Godard on Jerry Lewis

Jerry Lewis, as a filmmaker, entertainer and celebrity persona, was constantly polarizing.  In America, he was loved by audiences, hated by critics. In France he was placed alongside such filmmakers as Howard Hawks, Hitchcock and Chaplin.  New Wave luminaries  such as Godard, Resnais and Chabrol, cited Lewis as a cinematic genius, while in America the critics maligned him as puerile, infantile and vulgar. 

In this episode, Azed & Jay discuss the work and persona of Jerry Lewis and argue that his work is best understood by  re-contextualizing him as an experimental artist who used cinema as his personal psychoanalytic couch.  From the early Martin & Lewis days through to his increasingly bizarre but fascinating auteurist films, Lewis is the embodiment of a fragmented psyche searching for a coherent subjective position. A project which both in front of and behind the camera, Lewis consistently, but interestingly, fails to achieve. Speaking of using media as a personal therapy session, hopefully this episode will finally put to rest Azed's concerning obsession with Jerry Lewis and finally free him to concentrate on his other obsession: the music of John Tesh.