“Jim & Andy” Premieres in Venice

9/6/2017

Yesterday Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond premiered at the Venice Film Festival. Jim & Andy was edited by September Club working with Vice Documentary Films.

Chris Smith (Director) and Jim Carrey

Chris Smith (Director) and Jim Carrey

From Variety:

“Man on the Moon” remains one of the most misunderstood great movies of the ’90s (a lot of people just saw it as Carrey doing Kaufman’s greatest hits), because it’s really about how Andy Kaufman sacrificed his identity to showbiz — and, in doing so, became a herald.

Editor Barry Poltermann

Editor Barry Poltermann

for the age when entertainment would consume everything in its path, from our dreams to our identities. When Kaufman wrestled women, coming on like Bobby Riggs on steroids and taunting the redneck crowds who turned out to see him, was it a put-on or was it a deep-down reflection of “the real Andy”? Actually, it was the real Andy pretending to be what he hated, and realizing that he loved being that way, but mostly because of the reaction it provoked.
Except that he cherished that reaction more than anything, so maybe it was the real him. Or maybe there was no real him. In one of the greatest scenes in “Man on the Moon,” Carrey, as Kaufman, as Tony Clifton gets up on stage and does his unspeakable rendition of “I’ve Gotta Be Me.” It’s bottom-of-the-barrel sentimental showbiz hooey, but it’s all built around a conundrum: Who, exactly, is me? “Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond” shows you that the answer is a grand illusion.”