Kauf Kauf

I saw something a couple days ago that was really something. My backlog of VHS tapes that I have yet to watch is contracting, compelling me to watch tapes that I have to this point passed up in favor of others. One that I have finally dispatched was a gift from a friend, but I hadn't watched it because it was rather short. I don't know if that makes sense, but there it is. It's "Tank You Veddy Much", a video biography of Andy Kaufman.

The production value of the tape appeared low, but I didn't take that to mean that the thing wasn't good. After watching it, I can say at least that I loved it. The reason was not that it disproved any notions based on what the tape's quality was, but that it proved those notions in very strange ways. To begin with, the biography's visuals consist largely of photographs that have nothing to do with the things being discussed by the narration.

Then there were the video clips. Some of those were well-chosen, such as Kaufman's "Mighty Mouse" bit, or a clip of him reading from "The Great Gatsby". Others, like an entire scene from the horror film "God Told Me To", in which Kaufman has a small role and which was a footnote in Kaufman's career, were ill-chosen. Still others would be interesting, except that the sound is muted in favor of narration that briefly mentions them and then moves on to something else.

That narration is something else. It must have been written by a fourth grader in some other country, then translated several times by other fourth graders. The tense changes in disconcerting ways, sometimes within the same sentence. It often relates Kaufman's life in rushed clumps of bullet points. More interesting still is are some of the extremely peculiar things it has to say about Elvis Presley (an idol of Kaufman) and his predilection for Monte Cristo sandwiches, or about Kaufman's habit of hiring prostitutes (which, it noted, his mother condoned considering it was one of the most normal things he did).

I had hoped for a passable examination of Kaufman's life, which I was interested in knowing more about after enjoying "Man On The Moon" years ago. This tape did provide a detail or two that I didn't really know, but I must confess I'm unsure if I can trust them. That's all right though, because it's not often you come across something which you've never seen anything like. That's what this was. It was such a bizarre surprise that I can only say I loved it.