Second Essay: ET 3

 

Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton

Black bowler hat, curly hair, toothbrush moustache, tight coat with rumpled shirt, baggy trousers, floppy shoes, a bamboo cane……this combination will only lead you to one person—Charlie Chaplin. Charlie Chaplin was one of the greatest comic artist of the silent era, many comedians in modern day worship him, influenced by his acting, or everything; not to mention us, the audiences. I believe Charlie Chaplin’s movies basically raised a lot of people, for generations. So, what was this ‘great and mighty’ man so special about that made him so fascinating? First of all, in his comic persona, he had a lot of facial expressions, i meant A LOT. I think he had an expression for every single emotional changes, with the notable moving eyebrows and rolling eyes. Moreover, he had a funny and significant way to show the audience that he was hearing, by placing his hand beside his ear, very quickly. He did that in his movie—The tramp. And another interesting thing was, in Chaplin’s movie, he never smile, he grinned. Maybe in black and white film, plus in silent mode, you will have to exaggerate everything to make things or expressions clear enough for the audience. Chaplin did it so successfully. Moving on, the way he dressed was epic, as you can see the picture above, how could someone NOT attracted to him? I find those hats he wore was so interesting. He wasn’t always wearing hat in all of his movie, but in most of them. Most of the time he wore bowler hat, or derby hat, sometimes he wore pork pie hat, too, like in the movie The Cure. 

         

Chaplin wearing bowler hat       Chaplin in ‘The Cure’

Next, he actually walked like a clown, funny right? And with those baggy pants, big shoes, he tended to dress like a clown too. In fact, clowns normally perform in circus; comedy is created to gain laughter, and so is circus. Chaplin was performing circus in his comedy, that was why his movies was so captivating. His clown-like walking included hopping, he sometimes hopped and skipped, which made him more effeminate, which made people laughed. He was comedy. One more thing i love the most was his spinning. He spun when he had got high, panicked, or dizzied. That was hilarious! (The link below shows how Chaplin spun when he was drugged accidentally.)

Look the way he spins –clip from ‘Modern Time’

When he was in challenging situation, he would run away most of the time. For instance, in The Cure, the masseur wanted him to get in place to massage, but since Chaplin saw the abusive way of his massaging, he just slipping around the massage table flexibly like a gymnast. I was so impressed by his skills of flexibility, it was like swimming on the massage table! And finally he slipped out of the masseur. Next, Chaplin was like never showed his disappointment to the audience, because he would solved the problem immediately with revenging. Like in The Cure, when Chaplin got bullied by the big fat man, he would kick that fat man’s injured leg on purpose as a revenge, or pull away that fat man’s chair behind his back and made him fell terribly. By the way, when facing the woman he liked, he would take the initiative to introduce himself to the woman. Chaplin was very good at gaining attention, comparing to making fun of people and avenging himself, he would be a true gentleman in front of the woman he liked. A two-faced Chaplin.

Now, I will be moving on to Buster Keaton, another great comedian of all time. The comic persona of Buster Keaton was unique. Unlike Chaplin’s rich facial expression, Keaton was like NO facial expression at all! I mean he would just frown a bit, showed a bit of anger, kept blinking eyes if got confused, that was it.  He was like wearing a mask all the time, he had a simple and honest, straight, dull, and moody face, on screen.  ‘Extremely serious’ was the word to describe him. And that was the fancy thing about him.

deadpan expression and pork pie hat

Keaton wore a pork pie hat in almost every movie of him. Interesting. He even made a film about him, buying hats!

Seriously..

Besides, Keaton was a passive person. For example, in The General, first it was the girl who asked him to enlist, then only he run to the place and craving to be enlisted. When the officer refused to enlist him, he said something made me feel that he was so naive. ‘If you lose this war don’t blame me.’ Wasn’t that funny, the way he dealt with disappointment? It was like a warning, and he meant it, with his serious-looking face. See, deadpan humour could have killed someone.

Another deadpan expression was at the ending part of The General. When Keaton got his lieutenant uniform, that was supposed to be a happy moment, for what he did all the way from saving the girl to informing his soldiers about the attack, but I didn’t notice any smile on his face, it was still an emotionless face, I can only tell his excitement through his trembling hands and body while he was putting on his ‘glorious’ lieutenant uniform. Keaton might not have rich facial expression, but he had powerful, flexible and highly understandable body movements to represent his facial expression.

In conclusion, it maybe sounds like this two characters had no similarities at all, but in fact, they were pretty much alike. They both were short, and slim. They wore baggy pants as well. They both had flexible and skilful movements in their movies. Both of them were having black hair. The main difference between them was the facial expression. Charlie Chaplin was full of facial expression, Buster Keaton wasn’t. Finally, I have to say, Buster Keaton appeals to me more. Because i believe no one does stoic expression better than him. He looked serious, but he made you laughed. That is the core of comedy.