John Mulaney: The epitome of a storyteller

John Mulaney

A storyteller 

Film, more often than not, is about telling a story. Ranging from the very straight forward scripted stories of Hollywood, to the more conceptual stories that experimental film tells, either way a filmmaker, essentially, is a storyteller. In fact, it could be argued that all artist can simply be boiled down to storytellers who just happen to tell their stories through different mediums. If this is the case, that all artists are storytellers, then comedians are some of the greatest artists of all time.

It is very easy to write off comedians, and understandably so; their form of art is LITERALLY mockery, but I propose we take a look at comedians more as artists than clowns. Specifically storytelling comedians. 

Storytelling comedians are even more straightforward storytellers than the scripted Hollywood narrative film makers, which can make their job ten times more difficult. With things like movies, or paintings, or sculpture, or really anything that we classically consider art, the creator has things at his/her disposal that helps convey certain feelings or ideas to an audience. For painters it is color, or composition, or texture, and for film makers it is many of the same things. Comedians don't have access to anything of those things. They have to be able to make an audience feel like they were a part of their story, without the help of anything but their voice and vocabulary.

This is the reason that I am fascinated, and impressed by John Mulaney. Of all the comedians that are currently still touring, he is the most straight forward story telling comedian out there. His 'jokes' are simply relatable stories and silly situations, that he is able to connect with a crowd of hundreds of people over. No one story is that relatable, nor digestible, but somehow he is able to keep an audience captivated by over an hour of simple childhood memories. In my opinion, this is the true mark of a storyteller, and also an artist.

Everyone has their own tastes, for many people it wouldn't surprise me if my argument for comedians being artists got a chuckle or two (ironically enough), but it is indisputable that many are the epitome of storytellers. I, as a 'filmic storyteller,' am personally fascinated by the 'comedic storytellers' and their ability to boil an event down to its most relatable moments, and in my opinion John Mulaney is the best of the comedic storytellers today.

If you don't believe me, listen to this story of him in a diner in chicago as a teenager (note that there aren't even any visuals)