An Unpopular Opinion about The Man Who Laughs?

I had a conversation with someone the other day about The Man Who Laughs because she had just seen the silent film for the first time and knew that I have a special fondness for it. That inspired me to think about the problems I have with it (and yes, I do have problems with it, despite its magnificence) and why I have those problems.

As much as I think Veidt did a beautiful job portraying Gwynplaine (and there is no other I think would have done better at the time, not even Lon Chaney), I don’t think it is the right portrayal. Victor Hugo is exceptionally sentimental in the book which, I suspect, misled a lot of Paul Leni’s direction, and I think it misleads many readers.

I have never believed that Gwynplaine is a weak character and I do not believe that he should be portrayed as a meek, shrinking, timorous man, and especially not because of the way he looks. Looks shape a person, not make a person. And contrary to what seems to be the pervasive understanding of his character as a man so gentle he recoils out of fear of being approached or viewed or what have you, he’s a young man of twenty-five with a healthy curiosity, a dash of impertinence, and a good deal of nerve, tempered only by acute self-awareness and a serious soft-spot for Dea.

What doesn’t seem to be well-understood is that, behind the disfigurement, is a person, is a mind, as fully complex as that of anyone else, that his existence may put his disfigurement to use, but his reality is not centered on it. He has a life outside of his face. He probably has thoughts as mundane as “the caravan could use another coat of green paint,” or “I really need to patch that hole in my coat sleeve,” or “damn, Homo’s taken a dump a little too close for comfort and it stinks in here.” Then at other moments he thinks Aristotle was a clueless ancient who should stick to describing craters of the moon because no one could then gainsay him.

And truly, to deliver that final speech to the assembly, he needed a backbone, not just in the moment, but in the whole story leading up to it. One does not simply gain all that courage for a momentary plot-point. It is there at call because it is something he has always had. It is the one moment that should define him, not as a disfigured man, but as a man who is aware of his disfigurement, as a man who is so much more than just what people see. And that nerve, that courage, that brazenness to address such a group when you are only tolerated in it, that is not gentle. That is bold. That is bitter and gritty. That is the knife edge that has been sharpened upon the receiving end of disdain and ridicule, of being reduced to a disfigurement when there is so much more to him.

The silent may be moving, may show the pain of the story very well, may convey the moodiness poignantly, but it only shows the tears behind the smiling face. It misses the foundation of the person completely.