A Film Canon

 

 

Like Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields' physical comedy envisages the universe as a repository of endless pain. However, unlike the famous duo, Fields refrains from graphic depictions of violence, instead transforming his body into a giant, unpredictable funnybone, with the result that even the most minor encounters may or may not induce traumatic physiological repercussions, necessitating his trademark, anticipatory pose: hands over ears and eyes, cringing. This is especially true of his relation to sound, reduced to so many nails on a blackboard that, in It's A Gift, climax with his shrill, imperious, henpecking wife. In this light, Fields' only option is to employ a form of language whose communicative power is subordinated to its capacity to insulate and cocoon him, giving the impression that virtually all his conversations are occurring at the brink of sleep. To this end, he revels in repetition, hesitation, misunderstanding and, above all, a subversive quietness that, combined with its palpable contradiction of his actions, transforms his speech into a ventriloquial drone, explicating regular conversation as so much mindless puppetry, and texturing all it touches. The result is an anti-language comparable to that engendered by Groucho Marx, but which, in the absence of Harpo's silence, conflates the silent era with Fields' own fictional heyday, as if nostalgic for a mythical time when women, children and customers left men in peace.