FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

From Scientist to Clown – He Who Gets Slapped 57
Dødsspring til Hest fra Cirkus-Kuplen, directed by Eduard Schnedler–
Sørensen for Nordisk Films 1912, and the Swedish Dödsritten under cirkuskupolen,
directed by Georg af Klercker for Svenska Bio the same year, both
based on the same historical event. Other Danish examples include Den flyvende
cirkus and Bjørnetæmmeren, both from 1912 and directed by Alfred
Lind. Among other examples of circus films from the period, a Russian film
version of He Who Gets Slapped (Tot, kto poluchaet poshchechiny) from
1916 should be mentioned, directed by Aleksandr Ivanov-Gai and I. Schmitt. In
1917, A. W. Sandberg directed the Danish Klovnen (The Clown), which also
involves a man whose wife leaves him for a nobleman. The film was remade in
Denmark in 1926 by the same director, immediately following the release of He
Who Gets Slapped. In 1923, Dimitri Buchowetski also directed a film for
Svensk Filmindustri, Karusellen, where both the triangle drama of adultery
and the circus theme intersect. Interestingly enough, Sjöström’s film was also
followed by a number of other circus films from émigré directors: Danish director
Benjamin Christensen’s The Devil’s Circus (1926, his first Hollywood film),
Hungarian director Michael Curtis’ The Third Degree (1926, also his first Hollywood
film), Irish director Herbert Brenon’s Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928, Brenon
was an experienced Hollywood director), F. W. Murnau’s 4 Devils (1928,
the director’s second Hollywood film) – or, for that matter, Chaplin’s Circus
(1928). 38 What, then, happens to the critical whiteness perspective proposed by
Lunde in relation to these circus films? Should this perspective be reserved for
Sjöström only, as Lunde seems to suggest, by using arguments anchored in his
biography in relation to his own transnationalism as an individual, or because
of his particular stylistic choices, his already-mentioned “dazzling white-onwhite
technique”? However, as white-facing may also be considered an important
element in a film like Laugh, Clown, Laugh, the interesting question remains
whether this reading could also be extended to other circus films. This,
however, is another story.
A more general perspective on the circus theme is offered by Helen Stoddart,
in her cultural history of clowning and the circus, Rings of Desire. 39 She notes
that the circus is “at once one of the most entertaining and the most frustrating
of arts upon which to attempt research”, as history and mythology are here entwined
to such a large extent. 40 She argues that the “features of the circus which
make it so characteristically modern are also those which suggest its fascinating
challenge to representation”, namely the fact that it provides an immediate,
physical sensation – which of course, one might add, also links the circus theme
in a particular way to the early cinema of attractions. 41 Whereas Stoddart, who
does include cinema in her study, mainly focuses on later film examples (such as
Fellini or Wenders), it is tempting to draw out the full consequences of her introductory
remarks, arguing that the circus indeed might function as a central