The Last Laugh *****

Orson Welles used to call the great silent director Erich Von Stroheim, my ersatz "von." Erich’s last name was actually just Stroheim; he threw the von in there to make himself sound more imperial. This perfectly fits into the personality of the man who was legendary for his extravagance. During the filming of one movie, he actually bought a city block in San Francisco because recreating that same block would not be realistic enough

Billy Wilder once told me a story about working with Erich von Stroheim during the making of Sunset Boulevard. During one scene where the actor von Stroheim was supposed to snap a picture, Erich complained that there was no film in the camera. Wilder said it didn’t matter, just fake it. “You can’t fake it,” Von Stroheim said. “The audience always knows.”

I love the ersatz "von" and I love his films, but he’s wrong here. The audience never knows. That’s the magic of film. There are three types of directors; the first let’s the story and the actors do all of the work while he stays in the background, the second becomes part of the movie with wild and sometimes nonsensical camera movements and edits, the third turns the camera and the moviola into characters themselves. Greatness lies with the third director, because it is they who understand the art of cinema and can explore its various modes of expression to the fullest. Welles, Hawks, Scorcese, Fellini, Hitchcock are all classified by the third style – as is F.W. Murnau.

Murnau is the greatest of the German expressionist directors and it is his subtlety that sets him apart from those who were defined by this style. You always knew you were watching a Murnau film as he hovered in the background; maneuvering the camera to change your opinion of a character; changing the focus to give you a different impression. More than anything else it is the camera movements that stand out in retrospect, but go almost unnoticed while you are watching the film. The slow movements capture a different side of a face, pick up a different reaction, effecting the overall emotion of the film.

All of Murnau’s movies have this artistry, but if I have to pick one that displays it best, I’ll go with The Last Laugh. Some have said that this is Carl Meyer’s vision and that Murnau just executed instructions. I don’t buy it. If you watch Meyer’s most famous film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, there is none of the emotion or subtlety that is evident in The Last Laugh. Caligari is simply an exercise in how many stunts and tricks you can do with a camera. The camera doesn’t add to the story in Caligari, it distracts from it, in turn becoming an act of ego and nothing more. There are various camera movements and stunts in The Last Laugh but each one is meant to enhance the story and nothing distracts the viewer.

The story itself is about a doorman who lives in a small German town. The doorman wears a regal red outfit for his job and when he goes home his neighbors look at him with respect and his family with pride. The uniform gives him the look of a general and his entire sense of self-worth is based in those clothes. The doorman takes vast pride in his position and works very hard; but one day his boss notices that he’s winded after carrying a couple of bags up a few flights of stairs. Thinking that maybe the doorman is getting too old for the job, he is transferred to wash room attendant. The move wasn’t meant to be a demotion, but there is no regal red uniform to go along with being a wash room attendant and the door man is devastated. A phony ended is tagged on that doesn't fit with the story and looks like a studio insisted on it, so I won’t bother discussing it.

The doorman is played by Emil Jannings, who is the only Nazi to win the Best Actor Oscar (quite a distinction and something we’re all proud of). I am biased here because I don’t like Jannings and will go to any length to avoid giving the Swastika-loving goose-stepper credit for anything. He died in 1950 and I toasted his death with a 15 year-old bottle of scotch.

He does give a fine performance here, filled with pathos. But (and here it comes), I’m not sure how much credit I want to give Jannings for this performance because the subtle camera work of Murnau adds so much emotion. It’s very difficult to describe. Any great work of film should be hard to describe and that’s why film is such a great medium. With the greatest of movies, film should be the only way to tell the story.

The Last Laugh is told entirely without title cards. No words – written or spoken. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; the best films should be understood without any words. Not only is that the result in the Last Laugh, but you also get a film that balances a very fine line between ridiculousness and pathos. The doorman’s situation is kind of silly on the surface, but you watch The Last Laugh and you’ll notice your allergies acting up by the end. That’s also the magic of film.