Thank You Very Much

This eye-opening and entertaining documentary gives the definitive look at the man behind the madcap anti-comedy, who saw all of life as performance art.

I’ll admit I was not particularly keen on the shtick of Andy Kaufman while he was around, though his legacy has only seemed to grow and grow four decades after his death.

(Assuming he really didn’t fake his death.)

Like most people I encountered him on the TV show “Taxi,” playing lovable mechanic Latka, a nervous innocent who spoke in a chirpy, highly accented chatter. He was the breakout star of the show, but like many groundbreaking performers he soon became tired of the strict conventions of broadcast television.

He seemed to go off the deep end after that, turning all of his life into performance art. People seemed not to know where Andy the comedy act left off and where the real person began, and he seemed delighted by that. He would do things that were deliberately not funny, and somehow make people laugh at the fact they weren’t laughing.

He took great glee in polarizing bits like reading “The Great Gatsby” onstage instead of telling jokes, or going around the country challenging any woman to try to out-wrestle him, spewing bile about females staying in the kitchen with the barest of winks to let us know it was a con.

“Thank You Very Much” is the new documentary about Kaufman’s life and art. Directed by Alex Braverman (“Shadowland”), it’s the definitive look at the guy behind the madcap anti-comedy, a guy whose work was so revolutionary it still seems bewildering and cutting edge 40 years after his death of cancer at age 35.

It features a comprehensive array of those who worked with him and those who loved him — not necessarily lists that overlap a lot. Danny DeVito, Marilu Henner, Steve Martin and other contemporaries show up to testify that even when they couldn’t quite grasp what Andy was going for, they were amazed he had the balls to attempt it.

Writer/friend/co-conspirator Bob Zmuda, memorably played by Paul Giamatti in the fictionalized biopic “Man on the Moon,” is on hand to give the real scoop on what Andy was all about. They would do things like plant Bob in the audience as a heckler during Andy’s stand-up acts, bringing the show to a halt with his cracks about Andy repeating old bits and even his receding hair.

Perhaps their most memorable collaboration was the creation of Tony Clifton, a pretend Vegas-style showman who was simultaneously awful and extremely arrogant about it. Andy and Bob would trade playing Tony under pounds of makeup and costume, so people might think they were seeing Andy when really it was Bob. He even continued the ruse for years after Andy’s passing.

“It was like working with Houdini,” Bob says. There were tricks inside tricks, illusions hiding other illusions.

All this might make for a fine doc, but what really puts “Thank You” over the top is the impressive collection of archival footage, on-set recordings, home movies and other behind-the-scenes footage — much of it seen for the very first time in this movie.

For example, at the height of his fame Andy said he would only sign on for another season of “Taxi” if they would let Tony Clifton show up for an episode. We get to hear audio of the rest of the cast going berserk at the trivializing of their Emmy-winning show, with Judd Hirsch — no doubt already irked about Andy stealing the limelight — leading the other actors to walk off the stage.

There are also interviews with Andy’s parents, his longtime girlfriend Lynne Margulies, NBC mastermind Dick Ebersole and plenty of others to offer insight and history. An important part of his development as a performer was when his beloved grandfather, Papu, died — but everybody told the little kid he was on an extended trip.

The resulting loneliness and need for attention never went away. At age 16 he ran away from his Great Neck home, sleeping in Manhattan parks for a year.

We also learn about Andy’s legitimate devotion to transcendental meditation — something he discovered even before comedy, and actually taught others. And that his fascination with professional wrestling came from his grandmother’s love for the faux sport.

My favorite revelation, though, is about the creation of Andy’s “foreign man” character, which became the foundational piece of his act and the genesis of Latka. It was pretty much a straight steal/homage of his Iranian college roommate, Bijan Kimiachi.

The documentary doesn’t spend much time on the conspiracy theories about Andy faking his death, other than to admit it is something he and Bob talked about as the ultimate anti-comedy triumph. It’s a testament to Andy’s devotion to his craft that even many of his best friends and colleagues thought it a distinct possibility — Carol Kane poked his body in its casket, just to be sure.

I’m very thankful to have seen “Thank You Very Much.” For those who hated or didn’t understand Andy Kaufman, I’m sure it will rehabilitate his legacy to a certain degree. To those who adored him, it’s the ultimate tribute to a comedian who didn’t care if you laughed — but knew you probably would.