Tod Browning never left the carnival behind. He spent the early part of his life travelling with different shows, doing various jobs, including a "Living Corpse" routine, where he would be buried in a coffin (fitted with an air tube) for day's with only pocketful's of malted milk ball's for sustenance. That kind of experience, gained from having led a life outside cinema before stepping behind the camera, is something that has been increasingly rare in the post film brat generations. Tod Browning the carny informed Tod Browning the director; the live's of those who work the midway is an element in many of his work's including "The Unknown", "The Unholy Three" and, most famously,"Freaks", a morality tale set in the world of sideshow performers.
Browning's interest in the physically malformed had been apparent in many of his works with Lon Chaney such as the aforementioned "The Unknown", as well as "Where East Is East" and "The Blackbird". He wastes no time in "Freaks" portraying the ugly scorn with which the world treats the performer's that populate the picture. In a series of short scene's he shows the "freaks" to be happy, caring people who are patronized, mocked and treated cruelly by the "normal" world. Few films take aim at hypocrisy so effectively in such a short time.
We are thrown into into a fully realized, living, breathing world with an ensemble of characters. The viewer is immersed in the everyday backstage life of the carnival performer. Hans (Harry Earles), a dwarf, is smitten with beautiful trapeze girl Cleopatra (Olga Baclanova). She exploits his feelings for money and gift's, while making a fool of him behind his back with her domestic abuse loving boyfriend Hercules (Henry Victor), the Strong Man.
The movie has a rapid fire pace, and Browning never stops bombarding the viewer with unique and unsettling situations and image's still unparalleled eighty year's later. Whether it be the charming chronicle of the relationship issues of Siamese twins (Daisy and Violet Hilton) or the upsetting moment when Hercules punches the Half Woman-Half Man (Josephine Joseph) square in the face, we are constantly forced to react to things we have never seen before. In a poignant scene of profound kindness, the freaks gather around the bed of the Bearded Lady (Olga Roderick) and her newborn child. The Pinheads (Schlitzie, Elvira Snow, Jenny Lee Snow), Koo-koo the Bird Girl, Johnny the Half Boy (Johnny Eck), Angeleno the dwarf (Angelo Rossitto), the Bird Girl (Elizabeth Green) and the Half Woman-Half Man are framed by Browning's camera as if they were in a classic painting, not displayed as grotesque's, but as loving friend's. Director's such as John Waters and Werner Herzog, who force their audience to acknowledge the existence of society's outliers, are very much the children of Browning.
At the center of this environment, a romance blossoms between Phroso the clown (Wallace Ford) and Venus (Leila Hyams), who walked out on Hercules due to his abuse of her. Theirs is an innocent, enthusiastic love, especially when juxtaposed with the cynical manipulations of Cleopatra. Frieda the dwarf, who was once the object of Hans' affection, goes to Cleopatra, and in a scene of brave humility, begs her to leave Hans alone. During the course of this, she lets slip that Hans possesses a fortune and with this his fate is sealed. Daisy Earles, the actress who plays Frieda gives an incredible, heartbreaking performance embodying pure selfless love.
We cut forward to the wedding feast, a sideshow bacchanalia. Cleopatra openly cavorts with Hercules, too dumb and drunk to hide the transparency of her motives. There at the wedding table a chant breaks out, "We accept her, one of us...gooble gobble...". The freaks pass a goblet, each drinking from it. When it comes time for Cleopatra to drink, she tosses it at them, vanity making her unable to even pretend to be "one of them". Afterwards she mockingly gives Hans a piggyback ride, while Hercules accompanies on trumpet. It's an operatic moment of cruelty.
As the day's pass, the freak's watch as Cleopatra pretends to nurse Hans back from a poisoning for which she is responsible. In these scene's Browning conveys the message that in this world it is Cleopatra who doesn't belong. She has made the fatal mistake of confusing being different with being stupid. The final sequence on the caravan during a thunderstorm where the undercaste assert themselves against those who would hurt them is a vicious, primal tour de force. It's the thematic inversion of torch wielding villagers chasing the monster; a society of the unusual seeking to purge the corrupting influence of the normal world from it's midst. At it's core this is a story of community.
One senses Browning's own sweat and passion in every frame, and it's what sets him apart from many of his contemporaries. James Whale, for instance, directed his films with the remove and humor of a technically gifted intellectual, but Browning inhabited his pictures, dwelling within their dark world's. With "Freaks", his role as sympathetic chronicler of the marginalized reached it's apex. He created a vehicle for these people to be viewed as humans, and it remains a shockingly unique and compassionate achievement.
No comments:
Post a Comment