Comments on: BETWEEN THE NAVEL AND THE KNEES /2010/02/between-the-navel-and-the-knees/ Tue, 10 Mar 2015 22:41:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.8 By: Dave /2010/02/between-the-navel-and-the-knees/#comment-489 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:40:43 +0000 /?p=8537#comment-489 Again, very articulate comment on your part. The art and science of laughter is indeed a serious study. I wrote about it in a previous blog with relation to Freud and Jung i think; it goes back several months, but my understanding seems broadened by peeling away a few layers on Chaplin. That metaphor of active bateria is terrific as Chaplin really liked mucking around in it.

]]> By: Dave /2010/02/between-the-navel-and-the-knees/#comment-488 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:36:55 +0000 /?p=8537#comment-488 Thanks for taking the time to respond. With Chaplin, even a blog takes on a life of its own; he is a subject much more complex, and detailed than most give him credit for. The writers I referred to in the column, ( Gunning and Trotter, seem to understand important elements that escaped the minds of the Frankfurt school ) Best,Dave

]]> By: Chad /2010/02/between-the-navel-and-the-knees/#comment-487 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:17:57 +0000 /?p=8537#comment-487 Very cool blog Dave. Charlie Chaplin was at a theater near our place downtown LA. It’s cool.

]]> By: mason mckibben /2010/02/between-the-navel-and-the-knees/#comment-486 Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:30:04 +0000 /?p=8537#comment-486 The effort to kill or appropriate the active bacteria always yields a kind of “mirthless laughter” [Joyce:Ulysses] Hence the burden incumbent on artists always to mine the material and flesh out the laughter: this is what Chaplin is after with his intimacies, i believe.

A similar thing happens in various theaters today. Often large crowds laugh together or individuals laugh separately, but there are marked modes of laughter. I learn alot about others and myself at these times. Clearly, something is “going on” at these parts in the film, whether the filmmaker grasps it or not. It would be fun to replay Chaplin for modern audiences in a modern cineplex or whatever they call them these days.

-mason

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