Post by Morgana on Dec 13, 2009 12:58:57 GMT -5
All right, I'm currently writing a paper on Charlie Chaplin, and I'm reading this article...and I just thought this was interesting and that people might like it. It's from Gilbert Adair's article "The Tramp."
"The unique beauty of Chaplin's art resides in the tension that it sustains between the conventionalized figure of the clown (whose codified costume of baggy trousers, flapping shoes and bulbous red nose always represented, in any case, a stylized sublimation of a tramp's tatterdemalion dignity) and a realism founded on personal experience and observation: watching Chaplin's tramp, one is made simultaneously aware of the interrelated traditions of the circus and the ghetto, a tinsel and sawdust, which is why Fellini is his direct descendant. Keaton, by contrast, is a white clown, an Auguste. Like those of Jacques Tati, his gags are brilliantly contrived but often simply too lovely, too clever, to be laughed at. They lack that fundamental component of humour, one all but ubiquitous in Chaplin's work, /vulgarity/. If Chaplin's art is vulgar, though, his is the vulgarity not of the lowest common denominator, but of the /deepest/ common denominator."
I just really like the part that reads, "watching Chaplin's tramp, one is made simultaneously aware of the interrelated traditions of the circus and the ghetto, a tinsel and sawdust...." I also really like the word "tatterdemalion." It's basically synonymous with "ragamuffin," and I think it should be a circus show title.
All for now.
~M.=]
"The unique beauty of Chaplin's art resides in the tension that it sustains between the conventionalized figure of the clown (whose codified costume of baggy trousers, flapping shoes and bulbous red nose always represented, in any case, a stylized sublimation of a tramp's tatterdemalion dignity) and a realism founded on personal experience and observation: watching Chaplin's tramp, one is made simultaneously aware of the interrelated traditions of the circus and the ghetto, a tinsel and sawdust, which is why Fellini is his direct descendant. Keaton, by contrast, is a white clown, an Auguste. Like those of Jacques Tati, his gags are brilliantly contrived but often simply too lovely, too clever, to be laughed at. They lack that fundamental component of humour, one all but ubiquitous in Chaplin's work, /vulgarity/. If Chaplin's art is vulgar, though, his is the vulgarity not of the lowest common denominator, but of the /deepest/ common denominator."
I just really like the part that reads, "watching Chaplin's tramp, one is made simultaneously aware of the interrelated traditions of the circus and the ghetto, a tinsel and sawdust...." I also really like the word "tatterdemalion." It's basically synonymous with "ragamuffin," and I think it should be a circus show title.
All for now.
~M.=]
