When we spectators are sitting in a movie theatre, looking at the screen... You remember, at the very beginning, before the picture is on, it's a black, dark screen, and then light thrown on. Are we basically not staring into a toilet bowl and waiting for things to reappear out of the toilet? And is the entire magic of a spectacle shown on the screen not a kind of deceptive lure, trying to conceal the fact that we are basically watching shit, as it were?
What's the archetypal comic situation of Chaplin's films? It's being mistaken for somebody or functioning as a disturbing spot, as a disturbing stain. He distorts the vision. Or people don't even note him, take note of him, so he wants to be noted. Or, if they perceive him, he's misperceived, identified for what he's not. You set a limit, you put a certain zone of limit, and though things remain exactly the way they were, it's perceived as another place. Precisely as the place onto which you can project your beliefs, your fears, things from your inner space.
No comments:
Post a Comment