The Last Laugh (1924)

Originally posted to Facebook on 9/4/2017

The Last Laugh was our first film from 1924, our second directed by F.W. Murnau, and the first time we've seen Emil Jannings. Later, in 1929, Jannings was the first recipient of the Best Actor Oscar. In those early days, the acting Oscars were not given out for a specific movies, so Jannings won for two films. One of those was The Way of All Flesh, which has the sad distinction of being the only film with an Oscar winning performance that is now lost.

The Last Laugh, though, was dramatically different than Nosferatu, the last film we saw from Murnau. Unlike a lot of the German films we've seen from this period it is not supernatural in any sense, and is essentially a slice-of-life drama centering on Jannings, a hotel porter, who takes great pride in his position, and is devastated when he is demoted to a washroom attendant. The film is more or less realistic for the bulk of its running time, excepting perhaps the deeply cynical coda. From a stylistic point of view this film has almost no title cards, to such an extent that it was clearly a conscious choice. There is a bit of cheating here and there with diegetic text -- newspapers and handwritten notes -- but on the whole it is surprisingly clear and seamless.

At first glance The Last Laugh is similar to any number of social protest films we've seen about people who fall between the cracks of society, including films like Ingeborg Holm, or several of Victor Sjöström's other movies -- or even Griffith's Way Down East. In those films, the implicit message is that the society is responsible in some sense for causing or not alleviating some social ill. In this film it is communicated that Jannings really is too old to perform his job effectively, and that the hotel has reasonable grounds for demoting him. And in fact the hotel, though a bit callous in how they handle the situation, reacts in a relatively humane way -- in that Jannings is demoted rather than fired outright. I am really not certain what social message Murnau intended to be drawn from this film -- if any. He does not seem to be saying that Jannings should have continued in his existing job, nor that his new job caused any dramatic financial hardship. It is instead his self-respect that is wounded, but it is not clear if Murnau is pointing the finger at any person or institution in particular. One might conclude that the tragedy stems -- a la Death of a Salesman -- from Jannings drawing so much of his identity from his profession, but if so Murnau never really shows his hand and provides a moral in the way that Arthur Miller does ("He had the wrong dream!"), and that ambiguity is one of the things that elevates this film.

Our next film is Girl Shy, our second film from 1924, and also our second Harold Lloyd feature (not counting Speedy.) The list, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT