[A few years
ago, I had a lot of fun writing an
April Fools series. Foolishly, I haven’t done so since, but this year have
decided I won’t get fooled again. So this week I’ll be highlighting and
AmericanStudying a series of funny figures and texts. Share your own funny
favorites in comments and I’ll add ‘em to the crowd-sourced weekend post—no
foolin’!]
On mining the
past or the present for laughs, and why we need both.
Buster Keaton’s 1927 silent film The General, which retells the true
story of a Civil War locomotive and its engineer, is more than just the
comedian and director’s masterpiece, or one of the
great American films (although it’s both); it’s also exemplary of Keaton’s
consistent use of the past (both historical and artistic) as a primary source
for his comedy. That was true of the films that helped launch his career: the short The Frozen North
(1922), a parody of frontier culture and Westerns; and Three Ages
(1923), Keaton’s first feature film and a parody of Biblical melodramas
such as D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance
(1916). And it was just as true of the group of classic features he made over
the next half-decade, a list that included not only The General but also the Hatfield-McCoy parody Our Hospitality
(1923), the detective comedy Sherlock Jr. (1924),
and Seven Chances
(1925), which was based on a 1916 play. In all these different ways, Keaton
relied on the past for his stories, his genres, and his audience’s sense of the
traditions he was employing and parodying.
Charlie Chapin’s
1936 silent film Modern Times, in which Chaplin’s
iconic hero the Little Tramp is forced to confront various elements of the
industrialized, urban world during the Great Depression, is more than just the
comedian and director’s masterpiece, or one of the great
American films (although I would argue it’s both); it’s also exemplary of
Chaplin’s consistent engagement with the present (both its issues and its
images) in his comedy. That was true of Chaplin’s earliest directorial efforts,
such as The Kid (1921), in
which the Tramp and an adopted son struggle to survive in the modern world, and
A Woman of Paris
(1923), which stars Edna Purviance as the titular new woman who refuses to
adhere to traditional roles or expectations. And it was even more true of the
masterpieces that Chaplin would direct and star in over the next two decades, a
list that included not only Modern Times
but also the urban comedy City Lights (1931),
the Hitler parody The Great Director (1940),
and the black comedy of adultery and murder Monsieur Verdoux
(1947). In all these different ways, Chaplin’s films reflected, critiqued, and
contributed to the evolving modern culture and society around them.
Obviously this
is an overly simplified vision of both of these comic and artistic geniuses and
their full and rich careers; but I feel that there are these interestingly
contrasting threads running through each man’s works. Moreover, I believe those
threads could be productively linked to other American comic artists: Mark
Twain, for example, like Keaton tended to focus his comic texts on the past
(whether English, as in The Prince and
the Pauper and A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur’s Court; American, as in Adventures
of Huckleberry Finn and Pudd’nhead
Wilson; or world, as in Innocents
Abroad and Personal Recollections of
Joan of Arc); whereas Nathanael West, for another example, like Chaplin
usually focused his satirical lens on elements of the modern American society
around him (Hollywood in The Day of the
Locust, urban living and relationships in Miss Lonelyhearts, the failure of the American Dream in the
Depression era in A Cool Million). And
at the end of the day, I think it’s vital to include both kinds of comedy and
art in our conversations: laughing at the past helps us understand and engage with
those histories; and laughing at the present helps us recognize and analyze
ourselves. And those are both seriously important skills.
Next fools
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Funny favorites you’d share?
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