Circuses, carnivals, and fairground sideshows
Aug 1, 2018 0:23:59 GMT
Terrapin Station, spiderwort, and 3 more like this
Post by london777 on Aug 1, 2018 0:23:59 GMT
They are the people's art forms and rarely culturally esteemed (except in Eastern Europe, where circuses were (still are?) a respected art. Straight theater was despised as much as admired in Shakespeare's time and through to the modern day, its practitioners regarded as little more than vagrants and whores, so how much more were the personnel of circuses and travelling fairs feared and denigrated? If magic was involved the supposed or real danger becomes more intense.
These themes feature strongly in films abut them, and offer opportunity for portraying "outsiders" who renounce society's norms and (usually) pay the price.
And cinema itself is connected with them from birth. The first movies publicly exhibited were as fairground sideshows.
My first example may be the most influential movie ever made, certainly by art-house criteria.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir: Robert Wiene
Most of the film is a flashback, and the flashback begins when the protagonist and a friend visit the town fair, where Dr Caligari is operating a booth which features a somnambulist (played by the great Conrad Veidt). The scene later moves to the local madhouse. Among its many innovations, this great movie introduced the "unreliable narrator" and the "twist" ending to cinema, and these features are closely related to the world of circus and fairground sideshows, where the magician distracts us with his (dishonest) patter and things are rarely what they seem, while the girl sealed in the coffin on stage suddenly appearing up in "The Gods" is indeed a twist ending.
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) dir: Ingmar Bergman. A rare example of the English title improving on the original (The Evening of the Clowns).
This early Bergman film is steeped in the styles and themes of German Expressionism stemming from "Caligari". It also features a plot we will meet with in other circus/carnival movies, a bleak love triangle involving a brutal ringmaster and his wife or lover. (In this case, a double triangle).
Here, as in so many Bergman films, marital humiliation is a main theme, with the strong sense the group has to work things out for themselves (or not), as this is their whole world, so far are they outside normal society.
Bergman's The Face (1958), made after his masterpieces "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries" had made him world-famous, is a reversion to Expressionist style and themes. Max von Sydow plays a traveling magician named Albert Vogler. The film is an example of the hostility of "normal" society to travelling show folk, who are accused of witchcraft and immorality by the gullible, whilst being attacked as charlatans by the more educated and rational. Vogler finds he has powers of which he was unaware and cannot control.
I must have had The Face at the back of my mind when I asked that question.
In 1994, at the Goteborg Film Festival, Bergman presented eleven of his favorite films. One of them was:
The Circus (1928) written and directed by, and starring, Charlie Chaplin. I have not seen it so cannot comment on how many of our themes it exemplifies, but it does feature a brutal ringmaster and a love triangle, not including his wife this time but his daughter. Perhaps we shall come across a kindly and humane ringmaster before we wind up this thread? (Edit: And indeed we do. See Dual Alibi - 1947, discussed below).
These themes feature strongly in films abut them, and offer opportunity for portraying "outsiders" who renounce society's norms and (usually) pay the price.
And cinema itself is connected with them from birth. The first movies publicly exhibited were as fairground sideshows.
My first example may be the most influential movie ever made, certainly by art-house criteria.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) dir: Robert Wiene
Most of the film is a flashback, and the flashback begins when the protagonist and a friend visit the town fair, where Dr Caligari is operating a booth which features a somnambulist (played by the great Conrad Veidt). The scene later moves to the local madhouse. Among its many innovations, this great movie introduced the "unreliable narrator" and the "twist" ending to cinema, and these features are closely related to the world of circus and fairground sideshows, where the magician distracts us with his (dishonest) patter and things are rarely what they seem, while the girl sealed in the coffin on stage suddenly appearing up in "The Gods" is indeed a twist ending.
Sawdust and Tinsel (1953) dir: Ingmar Bergman. A rare example of the English title improving on the original (The Evening of the Clowns).
This early Bergman film is steeped in the styles and themes of German Expressionism stemming from "Caligari". It also features a plot we will meet with in other circus/carnival movies, a bleak love triangle involving a brutal ringmaster and his wife or lover. (In this case, a double triangle).
Here, as in so many Bergman films, marital humiliation is a main theme, with the strong sense the group has to work things out for themselves (or not), as this is their whole world, so far are they outside normal society.
Bergman's The Face (1958), made after his masterpieces "The Seventh Seal" and "Wild Strawberries" had made him world-famous, is a reversion to Expressionist style and themes. Max von Sydow plays a traveling magician named Albert Vogler. The film is an example of the hostility of "normal" society to travelling show folk, who are accused of witchcraft and immorality by the gullible, whilst being attacked as charlatans by the more educated and rational. Vogler finds he has powers of which he was unaware and cannot control.
BATouttaheck wrote re:Ghost (1990):
Oda Mae Brown thinks she is a con-artist BUT is she ?
I wrote:
Watching Black Rainbow (1989) dir: Mike Hodges I found the scene where fake medium Rosanna Arquette is compelled to utter true prophecies very compelling.
Are there other examples of fake mediums surprised to find that they have real powers after all?
Oda Mae Brown thinks she is a con-artist BUT is she ?
I wrote:
Watching Black Rainbow (1989) dir: Mike Hodges I found the scene where fake medium Rosanna Arquette is compelled to utter true prophecies very compelling.
Are there other examples of fake mediums surprised to find that they have real powers after all?
In 1994, at the Goteborg Film Festival, Bergman presented eleven of his favorite films. One of them was:
The Circus (1928) written and directed by, and starring, Charlie Chaplin. I have not seen it so cannot comment on how many of our themes it exemplifies, but it does feature a brutal ringmaster and a love triangle, not including his wife this time but his daughter. Perhaps we shall come across a kindly and humane ringmaster before we wind up this thread? (Edit: And indeed we do. See Dual Alibi - 1947, discussed below).