A Few Inarticulate Thoughts on the 2012 L'Homme Qui Rit

anonymous said:

How do you feel about the newest l'homme qui rit?

I know you sent me this question last week, anon, and I apologize for not answering sooner. I have a lot to say and yet no words have been readily available, but I figured that I had dallied long enough. When I have a better and more eloquent answer, I will be certain to let you know.

I’m assuming you mean the 2012 film? (There have been many stage productions in recent years including the Russian musical so if you meant one of those, I’m sorry that I misunderstood. And, if you did mean the Russian musical, let’s talk off anon because I don’t know anyone who has seen it yet.) And I reblog things about the 2012 movie, but I know I don’t talk about it quite as much as I could or perhaps should.

It’s not because I don’t appreciate it. I do. I have seen it quite a few times, a great deal more times than anyone knows about. I treat it a bit like contraband, relegating my watching habits to when I have the apartment alone because it sets me off for days, to the point that, for well over the past year when I have been moody or unusually melancholy, the first question is always “what’s wrong?” followed immediately by, “you didn’t watch l’homme qui rit again, did you?”

The first time I saw it was with my love. She knew that I had been waiting for it to come out and she’s the one who studies French in this household, so it made sense to experience it together. We cuddled on the couch as it played. She had tears in her eyes by the end. Meanwhile I had spent the whole movie silently weeping into her hair. Not my finest few hours.

I could write a great deal about how I feel about it, and maybe I will eventually when I am capable of processing it without being so profoundly affected. While it is not the most book-accurate, it is the most vicious version, not due to the tragedy of the story set as a fairy tale but in the small incidental ways that are more than rooted in reality. When he spills the wine on himself while drinking for example, it is not secondhand embarrassment or even the resulting laughter from those attending his fête that makes me lose it (yet again). Some people carry pens or breath mints or band aids wherever they go; I carry straws with me because I will spill otherwise. And no other version illustrates these daily realities and difficulties or offers this brief and brutal exposure of insecurities quite like this version. There’s a real and terrifying humanity at play. And it’s painful. And it’s beautiful. And it’s cruel.

Twinsies?

The other day, I posted about Sandy having finally seen L'homme qui rit (2012) and making the comment that there was a strong resemblance between the actor and me, "nose up, of course" she specified, because she's tactful that way, the sweetheart <-sarcasm alert. I was going to paint my scars up in a similar fashion to see how far I could push the film resemblance, but I had no red makeup and Dea wasn't home and I won't rummage through her things (...sketchy....) without her permission.

So I tossed on a bandanna and took this for Sandy instead. I didn't realize it before, but it's kind of freaky now that it's been pointed out. It's definitely the eyebrows... and the soulful gaze. Rawrrrr.

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.