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| yambu |
 Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 7:34 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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| The term was first used in the 1890's to describe the type of comedy we're talking about. (Sorry, but I've already misplaced the cite.) |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:19 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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| Thanks Yambu. I honestly never knew there was such a thing as a slapstick, although come to think of it, I'm sure I seen it used in films about the British Music Hall and Vaudeville. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 8:44 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Quote: Sigh... I love stuff like this.
Me too! |
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| lady wakasa |
| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:31 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 5911
Location: Beyond the Blue Horizon
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Something interesting I recently saw: periodically someone makes a movie as a silent, and someone's just made H.P. Lovecraft's The Call of Cthulhu. Sister Wakasa doesn't like silents (maybe I was adopted, after all), but she does like H.P. Lovecraft, so I bought a copy and we'll see how this goes at Thanksgiving. (Marilyn, I'll send this with Prodigal Daughters...)
http://www.cthulhulives.org/cocmovie/index.html
I really like the cover:
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| yambu |
| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 9:32 pm |
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Joined: 23 May 2004
Posts: 6441
Location: SF Bay Area
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gromit wrote: While people often point out the sentimentality in Chaplin, I always notice the nasty edge that hovers just beneath. For example, he whacks a guy on the head with a brick about a half dozen times. He enjoys his runty kid beating the crap out of the other kid. His boxing instructions include kicking the other kid in the rear in between punches (a tactic the Tramp likes to employ btw). When he has trouble getting rid of the unwanted baby, he lifts up a sewer grate and briefly considers ditching the baby in it.......
And I'll bet Chaplin caused more people to slip on a banana peel than anyone else in film. |
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| Marj |
| Posted: Mon Nov 14, 2005 11:39 pm |
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Joined: 21 May 2004
Posts: 10497
Location: Manhattan
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Quote: Kids still squeal at that stuff, provided the production has the balls to do it right.
As a kid, I never did. I found it to be mean. Even cartoons! But as I've gotten older I am more prone to laugh at slapstick -- even pratfalls. I guess I don't take it as seriously.
Finally. Thank Gawd! |
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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 12:28 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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| I've seen chunks of The Call of Cthulhu online and been very impressed-- don't know if it's because they really caught a kind of Caligariesque spirit in the filming or because I love Lovecraft so much.... |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 2:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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Lady,
The poster reminds me of the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence in Fantasia. I like silents and Lovecraft, so I must be the target demographic. |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
-Topher |
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| Rod |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:20 am |
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Joined: 21 Dec 2004
Posts: 2944
Location: Lithgow, Australia
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Which reminds me of my current gloriously chessy '50s reading fodder at the moment:
which features Hazel Heald's entertaining Lovecraft-derived story "The Horror In the Museum". Unfortunately, most of the stories aren't scary, just icky. |
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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 3:47 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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What a scary cat! Oh my!
Silent horror is some of the best-- Haxan, Nosferatu, the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Waxworks, Phantom of the Opera. |
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| Joe Vitus |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:08 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 14498
Location: Houston
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| To paraphrase Hank Hill: "That cat ain't right." |
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You've got a great brain. You should keep it in your head.
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| censored-03 |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 5:37 am |
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Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 3058
Location: Gotham, Big Apple, The Naked City
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| Yambu and others, I find the connection to the old Commedia dell'arte in this discussion of Chaplin’s The Kid to be very apropos. When we were doing the Fellini forum I happened to mention something from the Commedia dell'arte called lazzi. Lazzi were the sections of a performance or play that actually interrupted the storyline and for a short time gave the audience a comic-relief respite. Sometimes a "slapstick" type of humor was used and at other times something as simple as a short acrobatic performance would suffice. Seeing that The Kid really isn’t so much a comedy as it is an amusing drama, I think mid-section fight scene mentioned by gromit would certainly qualify as this film’s lazzi. I also see a connection with a common theme often used in the Commedia, that of the abduction of children and their eventual return to their rightful charges. |
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"Life is a comedy for those who think and a tragedy for those who feel."
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| bocce |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 6:39 am |
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Joined: 24 May 2004
Posts: 2428
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Marilyn wrote: Bocce - You've been screaming for a special forum. Where the hell are your posts on The Kid?
when i have something to add (not merely re-iterate), you'll hear from me. i aquired an early habit of not talking when i've nothing to say. it has held me in good stead. |
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| tirebiter |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 7:29 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 4011
Location: not far away
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Shut up, bocce.
Re. silent film, in a vain attempt to get a post-grad degree, I attended UW-Madison for a semester before realizing I'd starve (along with my gravid wife) as a film scholar. But before I quit, I was part of a group of film majors who were assigned a year of Variety to read. The object was to quantify the genres of the films released from the magazine's inception. I got 1922. I read reviews of hundreds of films, and was flabbergasted to see that the vast majority of films dealt with a few plots: young man faces failure and loses his girl, then finds success and regains his love; young woman is tempted by slick society before coming to her senses and returning to Jake on the farm.
Those two plots accounted for well over 50% of the films I saw reviewed. |
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| Marilyn |
| Posted: Tue Nov 15, 2005 9:39 am |
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Joined: 20 May 2004
Posts: 8210
Location: Skokie (not a bad movie, btw)
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Thanks, Lady. I still haven't managed to get around to Shadows (caught 30 minutes so far, then fell asleep).
I tried to watch Dreyer's Michael last night, but it did not engage me. It seemed very flat and bloodless, and I couldn't tell the characters apart. It was like a Russian novel, introducing too many characters in the early going. I thought the Duke was Michael for a while. |
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