‘There is no essential difference between the material of comedy and tragedy. All depends on the point of view of the dramatist, which, by clever emphasis, he tries to make the point of view of his audience.’ — George P Baker
In the history of cinema, perhaps there is no singular instance of an artist who knew this truth more instinctively than Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, or ‘Charlie’ Chaplin as he is fondly known. By poking at problems, and not confronting them squarely, this pint-sized pantomime artist made us laugh at the absurdity of it all, and revealed the universal truth that not only can the human condition be depicted better through comedy, but also that making the audience laugh is a better way to pontificate at a social malaise, rather than resorting to the power of the fist.
The term ‘comedy’ originates from the Greek word ‘kōmōidía’, which roughly translated means ‘to revel’ or ‘to amuse’. In its earliest form, comedy arose from the revels associated with the rites and rituals of Dionysus, the Greek god of grape harvest and wine. Today, when we see a Hindi film star donning the role of a standup comedian, while promoting a cellular service, it might seem an innovative idea. But very few of us would know that it was, in fact, Aristotle, who in his ‘Poetics’, written as long back as 335 BCE, had sown the seeds of the concept, when he stated that the foundations of comedy lay in improvisation.
In sync with its Greek roots, the classical definition of ‘comedy’ cites that its primary objective is ‘to amuse’. It has a ‘corrective’ motive, and it is based on truth, no matter how exaggerated. However, to make comedy effective, the foundation must always be believable. As Sir Peter Ustinov had once said, ‘Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious’.
Even though it is one of the most popular film genres, ‘comedy’ is unique as an art form simply because within that generic term lies a plethora of narrative structures. The most commonplace avatar of modern comedy involves a plot with the following plot points: boy meets girl, the two fall in love, and they unite after overcoming several obstacles. This age-old formula was made popular by doyens of literature like Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, and is till date keeping the wolf from the door for innumerable screenplay writers worldwide.
Next are ‘parody’ films. Stretched beyond its expiry-date today, in the form of a sub-genre called ‘spoof’, by the likes of the Wayans Brothers, Jason Friedberg, and Aaron Seltzer (Scary Movie series, Disaster Movie, Meet the Spartans), parody in cinema is essentially nothing but imitation—of the structure, style or subject of another film. Chaplin himself, in his early shorts, such as A Woman (1915) and Triple Trouble (1918) had taken recourse to parodies.
The third variant of a comedy plot is reductio ad absurdum. In this, a social issue is reduced to a situation of chaos and utter absurdity. Perhaps the reason we laugh, when we see people making all sorts of wrong choices on screen and making all the errors of judgments possible is because all of these ring true—psychologically this is all very real. Chaplin’s Monsieur Verdoux (1947), which deals with a serial killer of rich women, is a classic example.
Then there is the narrative structure that draws a distinction between how people react differently to the same stimuli and similarly to different stimuli. Chaplin’s masterpiece The Great Dictator (1940) exemplifies this aspect by offering several perspectives—from a barber to the barbaric leader—to depict the interlinkages between human conduct and the social milieu.
The fifth structure of comedy films is characterised by a central figure—the protagonist. It is through his/her eyes that the viewer experiences both the main character’s and the other characters’ responses to the events that unfold as the film progresses. Chaplin’s iconic tramp, who was introduced in the short Kid Auto Races at Venice (1914) remained the central figure in all his films till Modern Times (1936), which, in its climax, had the tramp symbolically trudging down a long winding road towards the horizon.
Once Chaplin had famously stated that ‘All I need to make a comedy is a park, a policeman, and a pretty girl’. The genius that he was he knew that comedy, like music, is not dependent on the accoutrement, but on hitting the precise notes. And the tramp succeeded in doing just that. As depicted in what is now considered one of the—if not the—greatest comedy scene ever filmed, when he boils and eats a shoe in The Gold Rush (1925), while his companion keeps thinking he is a live chicken—no matter how bleak the circumstances and how towering the odds stacked against him, the tramp never accepted defeat. It appears as if the character had an in-built mechanism that forever prevented him from giving up. No wonder then, the tramp is the universal figure of comedy, without whose signature, the smile, the human society will find it extremely difficult to survive.
The timelessness of Chaplin lies in the fact that absolutely at the onset of his illustrious career he had realised that there is a thin line that separates laughter from pain, humour from hurt, and comedy from tragedy. He embodied these apparently antithetical aspects in the way he appeared as the tramp—a coat that is too tight, pants that are too loose, shoes that are too large, and a moustache that is too small. But just like his films that seamlessly combined tragedy with comedy, his appearance was a smorgasbord that flawlessly came together to create one of the most everlasting images depicted on celluloid.
Thus, even though the tramp remains one of the most oft-copied characters in filmdom and Chaplin the unacknowledged inspiration for millions even today, it is indeed disconcerting that the world decided to overlook that April 16 marked the birth anniversary of this timeless thespian. If we consider Jackie Gleason’s definition of comedy that states: ‘Comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic—laughter’, then the reaction that Chaplin continues to evoke from his audiences, irrespective of age, caste, colour, and creed, 97 years after the tramp made his first appearance on screen, bears testament to the fact that he is, and always will be, the master of comedy.
And for those acerbic critics, who will invariably point out Chaplin’s discomfort with ‘talkies’, the answer lies in a quote from an American comedienne, Elayne Boosler: ‘To listen to your own silence is the key to comedy.’
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