In which Our Hero dunks on century-old cinema
Charlie Chaplin is a comedy god. I saw his magnum opus today. It was… fine?
Not great. Not exciting. Not even that funny.
One or two strong laughs — the eating of the shoe, the dancing dinner rolls — but mostly, the movie made me sad. My film-buff friend assured me it was meant to. The pathos is why it’s endured, he said.
So we watch the Little Tramp suffer. The love interest betrays him. Our Hero suffers yet again. The sadness swallowed the play. I felt too much pity and fear to laugh.
I’m certainly more of a Marx Brothers fan. I like the clever. The sharp. The witty. The possible. Chaplin, by contrast, was morose. The Marx Brothers sparred with logic; Chaplin wrestled with circumstance.
I also saw three Laurel & Hardy shorts, and liked them much more. A quest to change pants, failing in ever-new ways. Elegant clownic escalation. Need a new beat: toss a crab in the pants. Simple. Repeatable. Because it was so limited, clever.
Clever comes from doing more with less. Laurel & Hardy did more with less. So did Chaplin, at his best: when dinner guests ask for a speech, he offers a dance instead (because it’s a silent film!). Cue the famous dinner rolls.
In clowning, the game is paramount. A simple, easy-to-understand game that provides boundless fun for the time allotted. Make the game simpler. Then vary it. Expand it. Loop it. Narrow it.
With clown, I don’t want a new game. I just want another well-played round of the same.
That’s what I’m learning in clown school: the joy of the repeat.
That’s what I’m learning in clown school: the joy of the repeat.
Julian Wise 