FILM FILM - University of Macau Library

60 Transition and Transformation
Shearer (from He Who Gets Slapped) also starred, though most obviously so
with Brenon’s Laugh, Clown, Laugh, where Lon Chaney starred, which
further develops the clown theme from He Who Gets Slapped.
He, the Clown
When discussing the ways in which He Who Gets Slapped has had an afterlife,
being used as source of inspiration or point of departure for other works, it is
impossible not to mention Hjalmar Bergman’s novelJac the Clown. The novel
was written in 1929 and is generally interpreted as Bergman’s reckoning of his
experiences as a screenwriter in Hollywood, which for him, was a massive failure,
not least because his old friend Sjöström refused to shoot the script Bergman
wrote and decided instead to write a script of his own. Arne Lunde comments
in a footnote that:
this bizarre, modernist novel reads as an anti-Hollywood allegory about a successful
American émigré clown in America who has sold out as an artist and lives in a huge
Southern California mansion, despising himself and his new mass public – a narrative
with suggestive thematic parallels to He Who Gets Slapped. 49
To mention a few of these parallels: In Sjöström’s film, the scientists are turned
into clowns as “He” remembers the original scene of his humiliation. In Bergman’s
novel, Jac the Clown makes a grand performance on the verge of collapse,
and addresses his audience as fellow clowns. Likewise, his repeated formula,
“Rattle, clown, rattle. Tremble, heart, tremble”, recalls the heart that He carries
in the film. 50 And just like “He”, Jac transgresses the basic assumption that a
clown should never engage with feelings: “I? Talking about love? A clown discussing
love? Damn it, how disgusting – .” 51 Jac also states, as part of his long
“clown catechism”, that:
The clown’s love life is like everything else about him – it’s methodical, calculating –
mental gymnastics. His heart must stay in shape. Precision is essential. Like shooting
practice – it must respond within a tenth of a second to the instructor’s sharp, hasty
commands: ‘Love! Hate! Have fun! Suffer!’ 52
“He” in the film and Jac in the novel share one basic condition: they are both
tragic heroes who in different ways use the circus arena to perform the grand
questions of life, love and death. Jac, however, seems to suffer just as much from
the commands of the system of production, which can be compared to a factory
assembly line. Thus, it seems obvious that Sjöström’s film about the tragic