The Jerk point of view

The Jerk

Point of view

The transcript for The Jerk as a film is not particularly easy to read and immediately gain a definite aim in terms of what it wishes to express thematically, as with a lot of other Steve Martin films, it does I feel have a serious side, but its just harder to find.
As I described in my premise of the transcript, there is two main beliefs I gained from the film, these are basically that people are often too fickle and blind towards circumstances in their life that they do not realise the importance of, in this case, Navin our main character was completely fine, if not slightly complacent with his original circumstances at his adopted family’s home, however he goes out to see the world and summarised his situation went; boy gets job, boy invents something, boy meets girl, boy makes fortune from invention, boy changes because of fortune, boy looses girl and money, boy wishes he’d never made money in first place. The film just tries to show how people can be a lot happier than they think with less than they believe they want, but it adds humour to the story to take some of the ‘harsh reality’ off, because unlike real life, Navin gets a second chance and gets his family, and girl back, of course things don’t often pan out this perfectly.

This thematic issue is brought to us in the film entirely by Navin, he is the main focal point in the character, and it’s a story of his journey ‘From rags...to riches... To rags’ (film tag-line). Navin is shown to be a very impressionable character from the start who does gain some experience of life through his various circumstances, such as the jobs he has and the people he meets, but the one most important lesson is the one no-one ever expected him to be in the position to learn. This storyline will crop up in many different circumstances, from bad guys being just too greedy, too very similar plots as ‘The Jerk’ successful men lose girl/family because of the pound signs in their eyes. Navin learns that with the money came problems, the law suits, the publicity he didn’t want and it took over his life, becoming a very superficial friend of his, pushing everything else away.

This message conveyed through our ‘mouldable’ main character Navin of course makes him an incredibly important part of the film, just from reading the transcript and without having seen anything of the film, I am still drawn to want to look after him, with the strange feeling that without constant care and attention he will wander blissfully unaware, into the middle of a busy road and get hit by a car. But somehow he manages to go through life without a scratch and through no actual fault of his own, ends up a lonely millionaire with a huge lawsuit against him. The transcript in an odd way reminds me of a very long, very over-dramatic ‘road-safetyesque’ advert for hapless idiots with loads of cash who without proper guidance will ruin their lives.

The film is of course shown through the mind of the main character, with little mention of subsidiary or authorial points of view, the narrative is that of the main character, an example is the very beginning of the film, Navin is sitting outside a theatre in an alleyway and Navin’s (Steve Martin’s) voice is heard to say; “Huh? I am not a bum, I'm a jerk. I once had wealth, power, and the love of a beautiful woman. Now I only have two things. My friends and... uh... my thermos. Huh? My story? O.k.…” The most obvious idiosyncrasy in the way Navin sees things is in the way he doesn’t understand or quite get the importance or relevance of pretty much anything, which leaves the audience wanting to shout at the top of their voice, ‘don’t do that!’ Navin’s perspective on life is quite frustrating, and just amplifies how lucky he is to end up as he does, one good example of his deliriousness is when he is at the gas station, talking to Stan. Madman has at complete random, picked Navin from the phone book and decides to kill him, whilst this is taking place, with the gas station getting destroyed by gun fire, Navin remains completely oblivious to anything; “These cans are defective - they're springing leaks! Come over here and look at this!” This little quirk in his personality can be quite annoying at some points in the film, he can be at certain occasions, annoyingly idiotic.

The disparity between this world and that of others is quite apparent in the surrealism of the film, this is a very unlikely series of events, for starters Navin was a white child adopted by a black family, he believes he is black, from the outset this film is odd. There is faint examples of disparity I suppose in the black and white divide, the fact that Navin is white and when trying to buy a house is described to, the way of keeping rents high to keep out the ‘jungle-bunnies’ to which he takes great offence, having been brought up by this black family, another example of his naivety, this was of course still a very race influenced period and society.

One main piece of subjective revelation that stood out to me would be the key moment in the story where Navin realises his mistake, its actually a very important part of the film because it’s the first time that Navin has actually made a conscious decision on his own to do something which ultimately benefited him, without it being an accident. When Navin has lost all his money, he ends up outside the theatre where he swaps all he has left for a red and white thermos because it reminds him of a song he once sang to Marie before she left, this is the turning point, the one reminder of the past he now has, which he desperately wants back, giving the impression he would have given everything up anyway just to keep her, sadly it got to a more serious point for him to realise this.