A Film Canon

The original Hollywood grotesque, Show People performs a class analysis of the studio system and, in particular, its segregation of 'high' melodrama from 'low' slapstick, revealing that the two are dialectically intertwined, and that the splendid, aristocratic isolation of the 'star' is always founded upon the masses. Not only does Vidor present a series of comic collisions between these two sectors, but he conflates art and life in such a way as to suggest that to merely work, or live, in Hollywood, is to be a clown of sorts - a position that can be mobilised for subversive ends if properly recognised. This explains the artificial, hyperbolic tone - best described as melodramatic comedy, or comic melodrama - as well as the astonishing self-referentiality, evident in the continual allusions to real stars, cameos by real stars (Chaplin, Gilbert) and, most impressively, a kind of meta-commentary, culminating with the sublime moment at which, after having discussed her prospective romantic and professional partner with King Vidor (playing himself), Marion Davies (whether as herself or her character is, by this stage, unclear) brings her comic rapport with this foil to its climax in their rendition of an iconic scene from The Big Parade.