The premise of the film seems to be to discuss the all-time favourite
in-joke amongst professional comedians (and apparently musicians) - 'The
Aristocrats'. Basically, the joke - which, as, amongst others, Eddie
Izzard
points out, isn't particularly funny - involves a guy telling a talent
agent
about the various sordid things he and his family do on stage -
coprophilia,
*****, necrophilia, urologia etcetera - and in reply to the agent asking
what the act is called, the guy says, "The Aristocrats!" The comedy
springs,
as you can see, from the ironic contrast between what the man describes
and
the name he chooses for the act. Not much material there for an hour and a
half. So the film examines the mechanics of the joke in great detail,
concentrating largely on how it has been turned into a kind of jazz comedy
where the skill lies in the improvisation of describing the obscene acts
which are performed. The more outrageous and disgusting, the better it
would
seem. A variety of comedians are corralled into telling their own version
of
the joke. Some concentrate on the coprophiliac elements - George Carlin is
particularly eloquent on the subject of eating diarrhoea - while others
delight in ever more brutal ***ual acts, sometimes culminating in death.
There is a certain attempt to discuss the origins of the joke and the
reasons for its popularity but these are basically window dressing for the
main feature.
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