Thursday, January 24, 2013

Movie Comedy at a Premium (Essay)

How much do we laugh when we attend the movies?  We cry at sad or tragic moments, we tense up in action scenes, we kind of hold our breath at suspenseful points – we are entertained, that is absorbed, in one manner or another (or we are not), but how much pure, consuming  laughter do we experience?   In the vast majority of theatrical motion pictures we can always find something, somewhere in the incidental fabric of the storyline, to provoke at least a chuckle or two, if not a sage moment of comedic insight.  Laughs of various sizes are scattered around in screenplays the way most of us anoint our tastiest meals with salt and pepper.  But those condiments are not the substance of the food.  They only flavor it, freshen it, spice it up, maybe to some extent enliven otherwise dull taste buds.  But how many essentially funny pictures ever get made – essentially funny, not just incidentally so?  When we speak of a movie comedy, we are actually speaking of a relative rarity.

You may have noticed that when awards time rolls around the nominee list is never dominated by comedies.  You are amazed if a quarter of them fit that bill.  The dramatic films dominate.  This year’s Oscar contenders for Best Picture, nine in number, are typical in this respect.  As of this writing I have not seen most of them, but from what has been written about their content, the only one that sounds as if it could be largely comedic is “Silver Linings Playbook.”  And even in this case the characters are far from traditionally sympathetic.  Both the leads are whacked out, unstable and bordering on dangerous.  You look long and hard for dominant humor in “Lincoln,” “Les Miserables,” or “Zero Dark Thirty.”  Good movie comedy is at a premium, and there is a plausible, pointed reason for this paucity: They are much harder to make. 

Yes, they are much harder to make!

And that is because the human comedy is harder to underscore.  The complicating thing is that we are all a part of it.  It is like trying to view the contour of earth from the ground on which we rest our feet.  How do we get above the melee and see ourselves from another perspective?  Where is the humor in our ever so ordinary lives?  It is no easy trick. 

A good movie comedy is more than a bag of jokes or one-liners.  It is more than a contrived gag or two or three. . .  It is the use of the camera and profound writing and the craft of the medium to trace the arc of the absurd in imaginative human behavior and practice and (here comes the make-or-break part) visualize it.  So much has to be exact and very right to make such a thing work.  In drama, especially melodrama, you can cheat and pad and pander and get away with so much more pretentiousness.  Drama is more sensational, and do we not all love the sensational?  We also love sitting with our mouths wide open with tense expectation.  But the parameters of excellent comedy are much tighter.   

By my personal standard of judgment, for a movie to be classified as essentially, not just incidentally, comedy, the premise itself has to be funny or at least highly suggestive of funny.  Just the idea of the story situation itself when spelled out must provoke a notion of humor or absurdity. 

As of this writing the following are my twenty favorite movie comedies of all time filmed in English.  In each case I have simply written out the premise as I see it.  I have not gone into detail or given even a thumbnail review or evaluation.  All of these, as far as I can tell, are available in DVD.  You will notice that the most recent release date is 1993.  This is not say that none of quality have come forth in the past twenty years, just that I have not seen one according to my standards that would surpass these particular choices. 

Let me make it clear that these are my selections and mine alone.  I have not consulted with any committee or taken any polls or put out any feelers, nor have I been directly or consciously influenced by any critic societies or special listings or any ratings system or group consensus.  These are my favorites; they are not my high-minded pronouncements of final judgment – not necessarily “the best” for any and all patrons of cinema art.  I have listed them in alphabetical order, not in any order of priority or preference.   

Broadcast News (1987)
Premise: A major TV news outfit is somehow managed by an eccentric, blatantly bipolar, perfectionist but likeable woman.  A tantalizing satire about the world of television journalism emerges, one that digs irreverently and deliciously at the underside of the profession.  

City Lights (1931)
Premise: A bungling, accident prone street tramp (none other than Charlie Chaplin’s) pulls an assortment of crazy devices out of his empty pockets to work a miracle – by way of considerable high jinks and the pulling of the audience’s legs.  

Dr. Strangelove, or
How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) 
Premise: Imagine a lame brained American president; a puffed up and pushy General; a berserk Air Force commander; a paraplegic ex-Nazi adviser to the President; and a SAC pilot for whom the bomber plane is a delightful toy.  These outrageous creatures have a ball together cooking up a wacko version of World War III.

Forrest Gump (1994)
Premise:  A deep south fellow with a pea-sized brain but with unheard of motor attributes and an innocent and trusting nature goes from playground “idiot” as a child to college football star to Vietnam War valiant to industrial millionaire to loving father and turns out to be an inadvertent match for every crisis faced by the Baby Boomer generation.  He can never win for winning.  (You may consult my blog website and read my review of this one on my 7-20-12 posting.)

Gods Must Be Crazy, The (1980)
Premise:  Take the following ingredients and mix them together: the wanderings and habits of an African bushman searching for the edge of the world where he plans to deposit a coke bottle; a handsome wild life expert given suddenly to pratfalls and general clumsiness when he confronts women; quirky moments of interplay between man and beast; and amateur outlaws easily distracted from their criminal business to play cards or take a nap.  Of course the bushman is the show stealer.

Graduate, The (1967)
Premise: Benjamin, fresh out of the university and “a little worried about my future,” so overwhelmed and numbed by his parents and the flighty, eccentric world that they inhabit, is saved from total befuddlement by sexual attention from the deviously devilish and much older Mrs. Robinson – until he falls for her daughter.

Groundhog Day (1993)
Premise:  A bored and burned out weatherman finds himself reliving the same day of his life over and over and over again.  How would any of us react if we found that happening?   His responses to the experience are consistently cheeky, oddball and outrageous.

Lilies of the Field (1963)
Premise: A knockabout, itinerant African-American construction worker with a hang loose personality meets the Germanic and stern Mother Superior of a band of immigrant nuns who thinks he is the architect God has sent her and her sisters to build a chapel in the desert.  How’s that again? ? ?   Yeah, sure! ! !

Manhattan (1979)
Woody Allen again plays the schlemiel, this time a divorcee courting a teenager while becoming entangled with his married friend’s mistress and suffering continuing embarrassment at the hands of his lesbian ex-wife.  When asked why he got divorced, he replies, “My wife left me for another woman.”  Who are the teenagers and who the adults in this mix-up? 

Modern Times (1936)
Premise: The last movie in which Chaplin’s Little Tramp character was seen.  The awkward, mustachioed, baggy pants fellow with the cane and bowler hat this time does a tricky balancing act as he makes mirthful sport of industry and commerce and politics during the Great Depression. 

Moonstruck (1987)
Premise: The saucy, sassy, dippy, dizzy romantic turnabouts in a lively Italian American family, who fumble and tumble and dicker and bicker their way into our deepest affections. 

Philadelphia Story, The (1940)
Premise:  Cast and crew have heaping fun giving Philadelphia high society a tumble.  A wealthy, snooty heiress on her wedding day is unwound by the unexpected visit of her ex-husband and an overeager society columnist looking for the juicy story.  Screwball all the way!

1776 (1972)
Premise: Events leading up to the signing of the Declaration of Independence are given musical satire treatment, the movie derived from the Broadway production.  Imagine a surly John Adams who sings to his political opponents, a Thomas Jefferson who would rather be at home in bed with his Virginia wife than write the document, and a quite ribald, good humored Ben Franklin with an extraordinary gift for riposte.   The cast is huge and just about everyone in this Congress is slightly tilted.

Singin’ in the Rain (1952)
Premise:  An all-thumbs Hollywood studio for silent movies in the late 1920s is forced to convert to sound in this much adored musical.  The obstacles they have to confront as they trip over each other are flat out fun for the whole family.  

Some Like It Hot (1959)
Premise: Two jazz musicians during the Roaring Twenties on the lam from murdering mobsters must join an all-female band to hide away and stay safe, without any of its curvaceous constituents knowing who and what they are.  Yes, that’s right!  They have to dress up like women and persuade everyone that they are women.

Thousand Clowns, A (1965)
Premise:  Murray, an impudent society dropout, who happens to be a gifted and former comedy writer, is something of an adult child, determined “to give the world a goosing” however he can.  He lives in Manhattan with his precocious un-adopted 12-year-old nephew, who has assumed something of the adult role in their one-room apartment.  Murray’s lifestyle of pure whimsy and playfulness, however, gets a wild, sudden disruption when the child welfare bureau comes calling and he falls for the woman social worker handling his case. 

Tom Jones (1963)
Premise: The adventures of an 18th century bastard kid in merry ole England trying to live down his disgrace are bawdy and bounding in all kinds of bedlam, brash buffoonery and naughtiness.  It is based upon the classic Henry Fielding novel.

Tootsie (1982)
Premise: A discontented actor, persona non grata to casting directors and eager to raise money for mounting the kind of sophisticated theatre in which he believes, disguises himself as a woman and gets chosen for the starring female lead in a TV soap opera.  Complications accrue, however, from this unusual setup, not the least the question of how he can maintain his cover and get out safely from under it when the time comes? 

When Harry Met Sally (1989)
Premise: These title characters are two unsettled young adults who require chance meetings, misunderstandings and forced acquaintance over many years to find out that they are right for each other.  Their endless efforts to fend each other off with flippant comments, manipulation and downright insult produce none of the desired negative effect, while cupid waits patiently in the wings. 

Young Frankenstein (1974)
Premise:  The third generation Dr. Frankenstein inherits the estate and is enticed back to the famous monster-making lab where he gets hooked.  It sounds scary, until you are told that Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder are serving things up, and how can we expect them to do that without an abundance of sight gags and zany creatures chewing up the scenery!  Here you only have to know who controls the picture to know we are not speaking of a drama or a horror show.


To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net

Monday, January 7, 2013

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (Book Review)



Recently in a session of Jeopardy on TV, a quote was given as the clue and the contestants asked to give the name of the author being quoted.  In reference to marriage, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love; let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”  To my astonishment none of the three bright and learned participants playing the game that evening knew the answer.  Nobody even signaled in or made an educated guess.  I concluded from that demonstration of unfamiliarity that the name of Kahlil Gibran must be fading from the memory of even the most well-informed among us.  But a few weeks later I had the opportunity to build an entire morning worship service at my church around “The Prophet,” the literary work of his from which that quote was taken, and I was gratified to find out after the service was concluded that many in the congregation had not only read it but some owned a copy and had poured over it more than once.  My skepticism and fear were immediately dispelled. 

Gibran was born in Lebanon in 1883 and lived until 1931; he died a middle-aged man, but left behind a great legacy of a dozen writings, of which “The Prophet” has sold the most copies by far involving one hundred and forty-three English language printings.  He himself considered it his best work, published in 1923 when he was already fifty years old, eight years before his death.  Over the last ninety years it has gained a place of exceptional renown among religious thinkers and students of sacred works.  

In the book a man by the name of Almustafa, who has lived in the city of Orphales for many years and has endeared himself to the people there, is about to take passage on a ship and return to his homeland, from which he has long been separated.  He leaves with mixed emotions, longing for home but in sorrow over departing from his friends.  Before he departs, the people of the community hear of it, leave their places of work and congregate in the huge square in front of the town temple.  There they surround him, one who they have come to regard as a prophet of God, and they entreat him not to leave in haste but to speak to them his words of wisdom before departing.  They ask him to expound on many vital subjects, and he obliges them.  Different people in the crowd raise different themes.  Each chapter is an answer to a specific thematic request. 

I feel hampered in writing about “The Prophet.”  I would love to inundate the eyes and minds and hearts of my readers with quotes from it.  There have been several books just of his quotes that have been published under separate cover.  (Google him and you will see.)  His words have filled much of the known world.  Nevertheless, please excuse me from yielding to the demands of limited space and not exhausting all the possibilities.  Here are just a few.

I will start with what he has to say about children and parents:
“Your children are not your children.  They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.  They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. . .You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.  You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. . .You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.” 

Concerning giving:
“What are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow? . . There are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue.  They give as . . .the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.  Through the hands of such as these God speaks.”

“Though Comfort’s hands are silken, its heart is of iron.  It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed and jeer at the dignity of your flesh.  The lust for Comfort murders the passion of the soul.”

“Work is love made visible.”

“Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.  If either your sails or your rudder be broken, you can only toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.  For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.  Therefore, let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; and let [your soul] direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection. . .”

“Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. . .For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?  What is it to cease breathing but to free the breath from its restless tides that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?”

 “When you part from [a] friend, grieve not.  For that which you love most in [that individual] may be clearer in his [or her] absence, just as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.”

“Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  The selfsame well from which your laughter rises is oftentimes filled with your tears.  How else can it be? . . . The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. . .When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.  Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is greater.’  But I say unto you, they are inseparable.”

Where could we find more transforming and grounding words of wisdom than this man offers us?  I consider the book supreme devotional material.  I keep it at my side during my daily quiet time, valuing everything in it as much as I value the Ten Commandments or the Beatitudes or the Sermon on the Mount.  The book transcends religious and denominational distinctions, leaping over barriers of cult and culture, form and fashion, ritual and rubric, sect and tradition.  He speaks a universal but profoundly spiritual and ecumenical language. 

Aside from being a poet and philosopher, Gibran was also an artist.  Dispersed throughout Alfred A. Knopf’s published text are paintings of his that portray nude male and female figures gracefully posed as if engaged in an otherworldly ballet.  Look at them one moment and you might think you see departed souls hovering in the clouds.  At another you might see primal forces at work or an erotic celebration or abstract prayerful meditations.  They are done in black and white, not in color, which for me makes them more mysterious.  Rich discussion could be spawned just by a group study of these drawings, which have been displayed on occasion in museums around the world.       

Gibran is conservative to the extent that he addresses age old subject matter and liberal in that he engenders the liberation of the spirit as opposed to its legalistic imprisonment.  His language is not that of a fiery orator behind a bully pulpit; he does not lay down the law.  He simply invites consideration of his ideas and does so as one friend speaking to another.  At least that is the way I experience him.  There is, in fact, one other quote from his book that seems to capture this central motif.  It comes in answer to a request for him to tell about the gift of teaching.  “No one can reveal to you anything but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your own knowledge.  The teacher. . .who is wise does not bid you enter the house of his [or her] wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”  Gibran does that in a fashion unlike that of anyone else that I know.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
“The Prophet” is one of those rare treatises that cannot possibly be absorbed in one reading.  Only parts of the Bible and a few other great masterpieces can boast as much.  The repeated readings of which those in my congregation spoke do not have to be explained to me.  I myself am presently engaged in my fourth reading, and I already am convinced that there will be a fifth.  Is it any wonder that Gibran held onto his manuscript for four years before he finally submitted it to his publisher!  You can tell, from its poetic vibrancy and its sheer literary beauty of expression, that he knew he was in possession of something rare and lasting.  Let’s let him say it in his own words: “I wanted to be very sure that every word of it was the best I had to offer.”   It must have quivered in his hand.  I know it quivers in mine, and in my very soul.                            


To read other entries in my blog, please consult its website:  enspiritus.blogspot.com

I welcome feedback.  Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net