A Film Canon

Laugh, Clown, Laugh confirms Lon Chaney as the tragic hero of the silent era, stripping back his characteristically freakish accoutrements to reveal the isolation and vulnerability that always inform them. As soon as the film begins, it feels as if something has ended, imbuing it with an autumnal melancholy that figures every black outfit as a sign of mourning, and every gesture of happiness as the desperate mania of someone with nothing left to lose - epitomised by Chaney's friend and rival Count Luigi Ravelli, whose compulsive laughter is diagnosed as a product of excessive anxiety. As always, Chaney plays somebody associated with show business, but the theatrical side of things is largely neglected in favour of the triangulation between him, his adopted daughter Simonetta, and his business partner, Simon (or, alternatively, Ravelli, Simonetta's love interest), alternately construing his desire as semi-incestual or homosexual - but above all, unfulfillable. When the theatre does intrude, it's generally by way of a series of breathtaking shots from the wings, whose perspective transforms the expansive, imperious stage, harsh lighting, and giant wind-blown curtains into an unbearably bleak waste, emphasising the gulf between spectator and performer more than any silent film that I have seen to date, and culminating with an audience populated entirely by Chaney's hallucinatory memories - the perfect swansong for a career that was to end shortly after.