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CULT OF SADNESS part 2
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I always thought Oscar Wilde quipped that apocryphal deathbed quote. Turns out, it’s the domain of British actor/director/producer Sir Donald Wolfit, the subject of Ronald Harwood’s play and subsequent film, The Dresser. It seems Wilde’s pithy kiss-off was: Either that wallpaper goes or I do which seems much more fitting. Again, I mistakenly attributed that one to W.C. Fields who, in actuality, is noted for signing off with some variation of, all things considered, I’d rather be in Philadelphia.
Leave `em laughing, as they say, in life, if not in the movies. Last week’s post pondered the question of why ‘serious’ films -- those filled with anguish, despair and sadness -- were treated with far more critical respect than their lighter, funnier counterparts. Why does a filmmaker like Woody Allen with movies like Manhattan and Annie Hall under his belt bemoan that he’s never made a great film? Why have critics hailed the ‘maturity’ of the Coen brothers’ latest, No Country For Old Men, a technically compelling movie but not nearly as engaging as Fargo, The Big Liebowski, Barton Fink or Raising Arizona (comedies all)? As effortless as the emotional triggers of sadness and grief are to pull, how come we lavish such hosannas on those who opt for this easy route? I think it’s a subject worth further discussion.
You’d be hard pressed to meet someone who didn’t think the sight of a dead puppy on screen was sad. (If you do, give that person a wide berth.) On the other hand, if there’s a scene where the owner of that dead puppy was so attached to the dog that they refused to believe it was dead and carried on as if it were still alive, it might strike a portion of the audience as funny. Comedy is a nebulous creature. It is probably as subjective a topic as they come. No two people will always find the same things funny.
This topic was explored a couple of years ago in the undeservedly overlooked Albert Brooks film, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World. Brooks himself is an interesting case in point. Arguably not as complete a filmmaker and certainly not as prolific as Woody Allen (to whom he is always compared), Brooks has a body of work that contains a couple of gems, Lost in America and Defending Your Life. An acquired taste to be sure, he’s never pushed the boundaries of his very considerable strengths, that of neurotic, self-lacerating comedy, and thus remains grotesquely under-appreciated on a wider scale.
Allen, on the other hand, has been deified at times. Despite creating one of only two comedies to win a Best Picture Oscar, he seems to resent the fact that he once had the ability to make people laugh. His drive to emulate his cinematic idol, Ingmar Bergman, beginning with Interiors, has ultimately drained him of any comedic skills in his twilight. Even his more successful high-minded efforts like Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors have dated badly. It turns out obsessed, hung-up characters who continually blurt out exactly what they’re thinking makes for good comedy and stilted, annoying drama. Changing locations and having your actors speak with English accents doesn’t alter that fact.
I place the blame for Allen’s descent into sophistry and humourlessness squarely on the shoulders of the Europeans. The rise of cinema to pre-eminence among art forms in the 20th century runs parallel to the Continent’s wallowing in butchery and embrace of fascism. Emerging from that, they were left with a darkened view of life and a bias against anything resembling laughter of the non-rueful type. Once they started committing that outlook to film, we non-Europeans with our instinctive inferiority complex toward their culture bestowed upon it the mantle of Importance. The result? Too much Bergman and not enough Sturges.
Which is why, as I wrote last week, film folk fawn over an indefatigably earnest, sad but flawed film like Away From Here while dismissing the sporadically hilarious and flawed film, Grandma’s Boy, with a Are You Kidding Me?! It was an ultra-exaggerated apples-versus-oranges comparison to emphasize a point, certainly, and if it diminished my thesis, how be we now look at a more compatible match up? Something like, say, last year’s Control against Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People?
Both are biopics of the Manchester music scene in the late-70s/early-80s. Control, the feature film debut of photographer and music video director, Anton Corbijn, focuses almost exclusively on the life and death of Ian Curtis, songwriter and lead singer for Joy Division. That is only a small element of 24 Hour Party People, which covers the wider span of impresario Tony Wilson’s doomed trajectory as one of the co-founders of Factory Records.
Where Control presents a dour, black and white vision of a decaying industrial Midlands city, 24 Hour Party People is a starburst of energetic colours emblematic of the frenzied release brought about by drug and music-fuelled cultural upheaval. Control starts at the beginning with Curtis as a David Bowie-loving teenager and proceeds deliberately, step-by-step, toward his sad end less than a decade later, never deviating in tone or mood. 24 Hour Party People is a riot of anarchy, gleefully careening free from strict chronology and occasionally smashing through the fourth wall as Steve Coogan’s Tony Wilson comments on the proceedings to the audience. 24 Hour Party People is a joyous shout-out to those who lived life to the fullest for good and ill. Control is a sombre, stately funeral procession.
It seems, ultimately, that while everyone loves to have a good time, they have more respect for funerals. Everything about 24 Hour Party People was more innovative, invigorating, fun and life affirming than Control, yet Control was the one receiving more plaudits, awards, citations and nominations. What exactly is it about seriousness, sadness, and the wailing and gnashing of teeth that we feel must be treated with such reverence? Could we be so emotionally stunted that we actually can’t see that to retrieve a sense of fun and enjoyment from the looming shadow of oblivion is not frivolous but absolutely essential to our well being?
I don’t know if it was Horace Walpole or Jean Delabruyère who said: life is a tragedy for those who feel, and a comedy for those who think. For our purposes, let’s grant it to the former as the latter probably said it in French. After living nearly 8 years under the dark cloud of the most powerful man in the world operating on a ‘gut level’, it may well be time to rethink our devotion to the primacy of uncritical emotion. It not only makes for dreary-ass film-going, it may well leave us in the proverbial dark, surrounded by little more than smoking ruins.
