Tag: Georges Méliès
Wow! 400 posts!! (Have you read them all?) Never thought I’d make it this far. But it’s fitting that the big 4–0–0 be about comedy acrobatics. Yeah, my keenest interest is physical comedy happening to real characters in real-life situations, but the truth is I never get tired of comedy acrobatics. By which I mean acrobatic acts that are prone to go wrong because at least one performer is blessed with clown DNA. Or that the act is performed by eccentric movers who are just too damn silly to conform to Standard Acrobatic Form.
This one has recently surfaced on Facebook and YouTube, but probably most of you haven’t seen it yet, so let’s add it to my early film collection, complete with all the background info.
If the name Georges Méliès rings a bell at all, it probably makes you think of that wacky Trip to the Moon movie from the Dawn of Film that was okay in its time, but… that time was long ago. Yes, Méliès almost single-handedly invented special effects, pioneering such techniques as stop-action substitution, dissolves, multiple exposures, and time-lapse photography, in the process creating the science-fiction film genre, but nowadays his corny sense of humor, flimsy storytelling, and overuse of the same gimmicks make the work seem dated. In fact, it was out of fashion by the time the Keystone Cops came on the scene in 1912
As I said in my previous post, I have a bunch of additional material relevant to each of the twelve chapters of Clowns. This is especially true of Chapter 5, because it focuses on physical comedy. In fact, you could view this entire blog as Chapter 5 supplemental material! In addition, I’m still a huge fan of the Hanlon-Lees and I could overwhelm you with stuff on them, but I’m going to wait for the publication this fall of Mark Codson’s book (see below) to dive back into their work.
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Workshops & Other Events
My first book (1976)
My book Clowns has long been out of print, but you can borrow it for two weeks at a time from the Internet Archive. More information is available here.
My second book (2015)
Visual and verbal humor for the cognitively and artistically curious! Available here.
“A book to treasure!”
—Bill Irwin