Bruce Calvert
2008-06-05 13:05:54 UTC
[url]http://blog.nj.com/whitty/2008/06/no_laughing_matter.html[/url]
No laughing matter
Posted by Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger June 05, 2008 12:06AM
Categories: Classic Cinema
"Verdoux": The posters asked. People answered.
The cheeky little comic had delighted audiences for years, and with films
that appealed to young and old, simple or sophisticated. But then there had
been some very public love affairs with his co-stars - and talk of ugly,
sexual episodes with teenage girls.
Suddenly his films weren't so funny anymore.
And when the comedian seemed to acknowledge that - even tried to take on
darker subjects - the mass-media critics turned on him. Press junkets were
soon filled with rapid-fire questions about the filmmaker's private life,
and his duty to his longtime fans.
"I say that you have stopped being such a good comedian since your pictures
have been bringing messages - so-called," one reporter announced at a news
conference. "You fail the public."
It's a story we know well.
Except that it happened to someone else long before it happened to Woody
Allen. It happened to Charlie Chaplin. And the occasion was the 1947 New
York premiere of "Monsieur Verdoux" - the beginning of the end of his
American career, and his eventual exile in Europe
"Verdoux'; Chaplin as aestheteThe parallels aren't precise, but they're
clear enough that you wonder if Allen mulls over them on those long Saturday
mornings when Soon-Yi is watching cartoons with their children.
Like Allen, Chaplin was a great comedian who also wanted to make movies that
pondered the human condition. Like Allen, he insisted on doing everything in
his films - directing, acting, writing, even composing the score.
And, like Allen, Chaplin had a spotty marital record - and a possibly
criminal predilection for young women that had brought him nothing but hasty
weddings, legal problems and costly settlements.
But unlike Allen, Chaplin didn't just want to use films for his musings on
humanity but for leftist political statements. With the kind of
self-righteous certainty seen only in the slightly mad, or extremely famous,
he became convinced that he had something to say the entire world needed to
hear. And he would use "Monsieur Verdoux" to shout it.
It marked a turning point for him as an artist - and an abrupt split from
his public.
Watching "Monsieur Verdoux" again - opening Friday the 13th in a nice print
at New York's Film Forum -- it's not hard to imagine why people were so
shocked . Its break with his earlier films, on-screen persona, even his
long-time fans makes Allen's old thumb-in-the-eye "Stardust Memories"
(which, in retrospect, often seemed to copy it) look like a tossed bouquet.
A pioneering black comedy, Chaplin's film is the story of a French bank
clerk who finds himself fired after 30 years of service -- and with a
crippled wife and small son to support. So he begins a new career as a
murdering bigamist, specializing in wealthy, middle-aged (and generally
obnoxious) widows. A vegetarian Hannibal Lecter - Monsieur Verdoux has a
soft heart for animals - he only targets the rude.
The shock to audiences couldn't have been greater if Chaplin had played the
part naked.
"Verdoux'; Chaplin as victimChaplin's early films may not play as well with
modern audiences as some of his contemporaries' works do; unlike Keaton,
whose minimalism is always fresh, Chaplin suffused his films with sentiment
and often sentimentality. In many ways, they're straight out of Dickens -
but then, Chaplin's miserable childhood was, too. (It makes you wonder how
wonderful an older Chaplin might have been in "The Pickwick Papers," or even
"Oliver Twist" - here was an actor who could have made Fagin more than just
an ugly caricature.)
To his early fans, though, Chaplin was the movies - and a friend. Audiences
flocking to those early flickers were often poor and many still
uncomfortable in English; the five-cent admission was a boon, and the silent
stories easy to follow. They recognized themselves in his signature
character of the Tramp, too - a threadbare immigrant of stubborn pride who
had old-world chivalry, new-world ambition and gave as good as he got.
But over the years, Chaplin changed. He grew rich and famous and breathing
in the intoxicating fumes of self-importance - as ever-present in Hollywood
as the scent of bougainvillea -- he began to feel the need to lecture. It
was not enough to give the little people entertainments. He must provide
them with a moral and political compass, as well.
Although even his earliest films had sympathized with the underdog -
successful comedies always do -- there was an obvious move towards more
serious commentary with the industrial satire "Modern Times" in 1936, and of
course 1940's "The Great Dictator," which ridiculed Hitler. But both films
still contained long and inspired sequences of physical comedy; both films
still presented Chaplin as the hero (although, in "Dictator," he played the
fascist as well).
"Monsieur Verdoux," however, comes from a different time - post-war,
post-Holocaust - and everything has changed. Chaplin is only the villain
now, a serial killer (the film's subtitle, with a wink at Shakespeare, is "A
Comedy of Murders"). When we first meet him, he's disposing of yet another
body in his backyard incinerator; smoke rises airily from its chimney while
oblivious neighbors complain only about their washing.
It's an obvious, visual reference to the Nazi crematoria - and bad taste,
perhaps, as soon as 1947. Except - and this is what truly angered people -
Chaplin is no longer content to merely take on the fascists. That's too
easy. To him, we're all mass murderers - or, at least, those of us who
support wars, make our money off munitions factories, or cavalierly throw
people out on to the street.
"Numbers sanctify," Chaplin's Verdoux insists. Kill one man, and you're a
murderer. Kill ten thousand, and you're a general - or a capitalist.
This was nothing that an America still reeling from one war - and ready to
embark on a cold one - particularly wanted to hear. And they certainly did
not want to hear it from an actor in the guise of a fussy Frenchman with
foppish manners who felt that he was doing the world a favor by eliminating
its loudest and most pushy citizens. All along, Chaplin's audience had taken
him as one of their own. But now they began to suspect he had never made
that mistake.
There was a gulf between them, yes -- and the artist was as thankful of it
as a king is of his moat.
"Verdoux': Chaplin on trial.Of course Chaplin might - as Allen did, decades
later - argue that art and life are separate, and that the character he
played on the screen was not the man he was at home. But audiences have
never believed that, and rightly so. Only the rarest of performers can truly
counterfeit a character. For most actors, there has to be something of
themselves in the people that they play.
Added to Chaplin's long list of troubles - an (unfair) paternity case, a
threatened lawsuit from Orson Welles over story credit for "Verdoux," a
history of pro-Soviet statements and a long-simmering nativist resentment
that the English citizen was insufficiently patriotic (although two of his
sons had served in World War II) - his icily superior "Comedy of Murders"
was a fatal blow.
In some ways, it was merely ahead of its time. The next year, Preston
Sturges would make light of murderous jealousy in "Unfaithfully Yours"; the
year after, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" would wink at a serial killer. By the
1950s, black comedy would be a movement, its "sick" humor influencing
artists from Alfred Hitchcock to Lenny Bruce.
But movie fans weren't ready to laugh at death - not yet.
Although there were those who praised the film - James Agee mounted an
exhaustive defense in "The Nation" - "Monsieur Verdoux" was a critical and
commercial failure. Chaplin's next film, 1952's "Limelight," was -
significantly - about an aging music-hall comedian who no longer has a
following. It was while Chaplin was sailing to London to promote the film
that J. Edgar Hoover had his re-entry permit denied.
Chaplin never worked in America again.
And so, to see "Verdoux" again is not only to see a great artist taking
great risks (Agee called the film, with some hyperbole, "one of the few
indispensable works of our time"); it's to see a man at a crossroads, and
the biggest star that the movies ever produced beginning to fade out.
It's about Chaplin at his early best (delicately physical, with the speed of
a butterfly) and end-of-career worst (tiresomely pedantic, full of pompous
self-regard). It's about how comedians long to be taken seriously, and how
audiences hate to be asked to stop laughing. It's about the person and the
persona, and how easy - and dangerous - it is for both the star and the fan
to confuse them.
And if you haven't seen "Monsieur Verdoux" yet - it's about time.
No laughing matter
Posted by Stephen Whitty/The Star-Ledger June 05, 2008 12:06AM
Categories: Classic Cinema
"Verdoux": The posters asked. People answered.
The cheeky little comic had delighted audiences for years, and with films
that appealed to young and old, simple or sophisticated. But then there had
been some very public love affairs with his co-stars - and talk of ugly,
sexual episodes with teenage girls.
Suddenly his films weren't so funny anymore.
And when the comedian seemed to acknowledge that - even tried to take on
darker subjects - the mass-media critics turned on him. Press junkets were
soon filled with rapid-fire questions about the filmmaker's private life,
and his duty to his longtime fans.
"I say that you have stopped being such a good comedian since your pictures
have been bringing messages - so-called," one reporter announced at a news
conference. "You fail the public."
It's a story we know well.
Except that it happened to someone else long before it happened to Woody
Allen. It happened to Charlie Chaplin. And the occasion was the 1947 New
York premiere of "Monsieur Verdoux" - the beginning of the end of his
American career, and his eventual exile in Europe
"Verdoux'; Chaplin as aestheteThe parallels aren't precise, but they're
clear enough that you wonder if Allen mulls over them on those long Saturday
mornings when Soon-Yi is watching cartoons with their children.
Like Allen, Chaplin was a great comedian who also wanted to make movies that
pondered the human condition. Like Allen, he insisted on doing everything in
his films - directing, acting, writing, even composing the score.
And, like Allen, Chaplin had a spotty marital record - and a possibly
criminal predilection for young women that had brought him nothing but hasty
weddings, legal problems and costly settlements.
But unlike Allen, Chaplin didn't just want to use films for his musings on
humanity but for leftist political statements. With the kind of
self-righteous certainty seen only in the slightly mad, or extremely famous,
he became convinced that he had something to say the entire world needed to
hear. And he would use "Monsieur Verdoux" to shout it.
It marked a turning point for him as an artist - and an abrupt split from
his public.
Watching "Monsieur Verdoux" again - opening Friday the 13th in a nice print
at New York's Film Forum -- it's not hard to imagine why people were so
shocked . Its break with his earlier films, on-screen persona, even his
long-time fans makes Allen's old thumb-in-the-eye "Stardust Memories"
(which, in retrospect, often seemed to copy it) look like a tossed bouquet.
A pioneering black comedy, Chaplin's film is the story of a French bank
clerk who finds himself fired after 30 years of service -- and with a
crippled wife and small son to support. So he begins a new career as a
murdering bigamist, specializing in wealthy, middle-aged (and generally
obnoxious) widows. A vegetarian Hannibal Lecter - Monsieur Verdoux has a
soft heart for animals - he only targets the rude.
The shock to audiences couldn't have been greater if Chaplin had played the
part naked.
"Verdoux'; Chaplin as victimChaplin's early films may not play as well with
modern audiences as some of his contemporaries' works do; unlike Keaton,
whose minimalism is always fresh, Chaplin suffused his films with sentiment
and often sentimentality. In many ways, they're straight out of Dickens -
but then, Chaplin's miserable childhood was, too. (It makes you wonder how
wonderful an older Chaplin might have been in "The Pickwick Papers," or even
"Oliver Twist" - here was an actor who could have made Fagin more than just
an ugly caricature.)
To his early fans, though, Chaplin was the movies - and a friend. Audiences
flocking to those early flickers were often poor and many still
uncomfortable in English; the five-cent admission was a boon, and the silent
stories easy to follow. They recognized themselves in his signature
character of the Tramp, too - a threadbare immigrant of stubborn pride who
had old-world chivalry, new-world ambition and gave as good as he got.
But over the years, Chaplin changed. He grew rich and famous and breathing
in the intoxicating fumes of self-importance - as ever-present in Hollywood
as the scent of bougainvillea -- he began to feel the need to lecture. It
was not enough to give the little people entertainments. He must provide
them with a moral and political compass, as well.
Although even his earliest films had sympathized with the underdog -
successful comedies always do -- there was an obvious move towards more
serious commentary with the industrial satire "Modern Times" in 1936, and of
course 1940's "The Great Dictator," which ridiculed Hitler. But both films
still contained long and inspired sequences of physical comedy; both films
still presented Chaplin as the hero (although, in "Dictator," he played the
fascist as well).
"Monsieur Verdoux," however, comes from a different time - post-war,
post-Holocaust - and everything has changed. Chaplin is only the villain
now, a serial killer (the film's subtitle, with a wink at Shakespeare, is "A
Comedy of Murders"). When we first meet him, he's disposing of yet another
body in his backyard incinerator; smoke rises airily from its chimney while
oblivious neighbors complain only about their washing.
It's an obvious, visual reference to the Nazi crematoria - and bad taste,
perhaps, as soon as 1947. Except - and this is what truly angered people -
Chaplin is no longer content to merely take on the fascists. That's too
easy. To him, we're all mass murderers - or, at least, those of us who
support wars, make our money off munitions factories, or cavalierly throw
people out on to the street.
"Numbers sanctify," Chaplin's Verdoux insists. Kill one man, and you're a
murderer. Kill ten thousand, and you're a general - or a capitalist.
This was nothing that an America still reeling from one war - and ready to
embark on a cold one - particularly wanted to hear. And they certainly did
not want to hear it from an actor in the guise of a fussy Frenchman with
foppish manners who felt that he was doing the world a favor by eliminating
its loudest and most pushy citizens. All along, Chaplin's audience had taken
him as one of their own. But now they began to suspect he had never made
that mistake.
There was a gulf between them, yes -- and the artist was as thankful of it
as a king is of his moat.
"Verdoux': Chaplin on trial.Of course Chaplin might - as Allen did, decades
later - argue that art and life are separate, and that the character he
played on the screen was not the man he was at home. But audiences have
never believed that, and rightly so. Only the rarest of performers can truly
counterfeit a character. For most actors, there has to be something of
themselves in the people that they play.
Added to Chaplin's long list of troubles - an (unfair) paternity case, a
threatened lawsuit from Orson Welles over story credit for "Verdoux," a
history of pro-Soviet statements and a long-simmering nativist resentment
that the English citizen was insufficiently patriotic (although two of his
sons had served in World War II) - his icily superior "Comedy of Murders"
was a fatal blow.
In some ways, it was merely ahead of its time. The next year, Preston
Sturges would make light of murderous jealousy in "Unfaithfully Yours"; the
year after, "Kind Hearts and Coronets" would wink at a serial killer. By the
1950s, black comedy would be a movement, its "sick" humor influencing
artists from Alfred Hitchcock to Lenny Bruce.
But movie fans weren't ready to laugh at death - not yet.
Although there were those who praised the film - James Agee mounted an
exhaustive defense in "The Nation" - "Monsieur Verdoux" was a critical and
commercial failure. Chaplin's next film, 1952's "Limelight," was -
significantly - about an aging music-hall comedian who no longer has a
following. It was while Chaplin was sailing to London to promote the film
that J. Edgar Hoover had his re-entry permit denied.
Chaplin never worked in America again.
And so, to see "Verdoux" again is not only to see a great artist taking
great risks (Agee called the film, with some hyperbole, "one of the few
indispensable works of our time"); it's to see a man at a crossroads, and
the biggest star that the movies ever produced beginning to fade out.
It's about Chaplin at his early best (delicately physical, with the speed of
a butterfly) and end-of-career worst (tiresomely pedantic, full of pompous
self-regard). It's about how comedians long to be taken seriously, and how
audiences hate to be asked to stop laughing. It's about the person and the
persona, and how easy - and dangerous - it is for both the star and the fan
to confuse them.
And if you haven't seen "Monsieur Verdoux" yet - it's about time.
--
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com
Bruce Calvert
--
Visit the Silent Film Still Archive
http://www.silentfilmstillarchive.com