Tag: Silent Film Comedy
We may know Max Linder as the first truly international film star, the father of silent film comedy, but he was also a playwright and stage comedian whose live performances drew mobs every bit as frenzied as those that later greeted Chaplin, Sinatra, and the Beatles. What is most compelling about his stage work, however, is his innovative combination of film and live performance, the details of which you’ll have to read Mr. Bren’s article to discover! And click here to visit Mr. Bren’s web site.
Supposedly I’m a big expert on all this clown and physical comedy stuff. Yeah, like I actually have the time to watch all those DVDs overcrowding my shelves.
We last left Pierre Etaix (post 99) with the happy news of the legal triumph that restored his rights to his own films, paving the way for their reappearance in film festivals and, ultimately, their DVD debut. Now that I’m back on the case, I thought I should try to find out how much of that has actually come to pass since my May 19th post. Here’s the scoop:
• A restored version of Etaix’s Le Grand Amour was shown at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
• Restoration of the entire Etaix ouevre was completed this July by the Technicolor Foundation and the Groupama Gan Foundation. Click here for details.
• At least four of his films are being screened this week at the Cinémathèque Québécois in Montreal. Click here for an article from the Montreal Gazette.
• A September DVD release of the collected works, Intégral Pierre Etaix, was said to be forthcoming from Carlotta, but their web site was only promoting live screenings and video on demand, and the VOD was only available in France
• So I wrote Carlotta and this morning heard back from them that it is Arte, not Carlotta, that is releasing the entire collection — and it’s due out next week! Click here to link to Arte’s Etaix page. As of today, they are not yet taking orders, but the release date is set for November 2nd. So, yes, I will get my order in and try to post a review to your favorite physical comedy blog as soon as I can work my way through the nine hours (!) of material.
Don’t quote me, but it’s a small world after all.
The year was 1973 and I was a student at Ringling’s Clown College where, as part of the training, dean Bill Ballantine screened comedy films. Yes, this was the Dark Ages, still several years before the first VHS tapes and a full two decades before DVDs. I fondly remember sitting with the likes of Penn Jillette, Michael Davis, and Mike Bongar, devouring the works of W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, and other classics. One delightful oddity that caught my attention was a modern-day silent film comedy, Yoyo (1965), directed by and starring the French renaissance man, Pierre Etaix. Although Jacques Tati — another French master of the modern silent film — was to complete his last feature film the next year (Parade, 1974), neither he nor Etaix were exactly household names in the United States.
In a first for this blog, I am posting from 37,000 feet above earth, aboard a Delta Atlanta–NYC flight with free wi-fi (trial offer). I’m sure this will soon be standard, even for us bozos in coach, but right now I’m thinking it’s pretty cool.
Charley Bowers: The Rediscovery of an American Comic Genius
Co-produced by Image Entertainment (USA) and Lobster Films (France)
2-disc DVD; run time 149 mins.
2004
The first movie comedy I saw starred Danny Kaye. I might have been 6 or 7 and I laughed so hard that I still remember thinking, gee, I didn’t know anything could make you laugh that hard. My first Jacques Tati movie was Playtime. I was 19 and in Europe for the first time and, despite a show biz childhood, I had seen little if any silent film comedy. I was amazed. I remember thinking, zut alors, I didn’t know you could do that! It was as if I had discovered a new art form.
Chapter 5 from my book, Clowns: A Panoramic History
One more background piece. This chapter from my 1976 history of clowns dealt in detail with the development of physical comedy in the nineteenth century and, ultimately, its influence on American silent film comedy. Good stuff!
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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