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So, here's the thing: ever since I decided to start writing about individual movie scenes a few weeks ago, I've been endlessly tossing around ideas in my head of what I want to write about, my choices driven in equal parts by genuine love for the movies chosen and a lingering snobbish streak that makes me want to look good in front of the cool kids. Titles have been added, a few have been removed, but from Moment One there were three specific scenes I knew immediately would be going in, no question. The first was the Amadeus bit that I wrote my first entry about. The second was a taut confrontation scene from an indie drama that I'll be writing about next week, quite possibly as penance.
The third is Mongo punching out a horse:
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And with that, all my crypto-academic analytic posturing goes pthpthbthbth, right out the window. Because what can you say about this? This is the part where I usually give a short synopsis of the film's premise—in this case, a racial satire based around a black sheriff in a backwards frontier town—and try to provide some context for the scene, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference because Mongo is punching out a horse. (The only thing you need to know going in is that Mongo is a big, dumb, muscular thug, and you can get all that just by looking at the guy.) I could go into the logistics of what makes the scene work, getting into concepts of comic timing and expectations and surprise, or discuss the place Blazing Saddles holds in director Mel Brooks's filmography or the place he holds in the history of comedy, but in the end there's nothing to discuss because Mongo is punching out a horse. I can't even go into a detailed description because the clip is only 13 seconds long, and frankly eight or nine of those seconds are just padding for the joke.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a world where entertainments are routinely tiered into highbrow and lowbrow, or "acceptable" and "drivel," comedy is often the great equalizer. It's easy for some of us to disapprove of a movie like Blazing Saddles with its penis jokes and fart jokes and heaven knows what other assaults on sophistication and good taste—gods know I've done it countless times—but the movie does not seek our approval, only our laughter. And the thing is that I can sit here with a DVD collection brimming with titles from Fritz Lang and Akira Kurosawa and Louis Malle, all of which I genuinely adore and admire, and yet every time I see Alex Karras take a swing and see the horse go down with a Wile E. Coyote-like splat, soda once again comes flying out of my nose and I have to rewind to watch it again, every time. Roger Ebert once said in a review of a "low" comedy that he laughed at, "That's proof, if any is required, that I still possess streaks of immaturity and vulgarity. May I never lose them." Amen.
Also? Writing about comedy is hard. Maybe that's why comedies don't win Oscars.
The third is Mongo punching out a horse:
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And with that, all my crypto-academic analytic posturing goes pthpthbthbth, right out the window. Because what can you say about this? This is the part where I usually give a short synopsis of the film's premise—in this case, a racial satire based around a black sheriff in a backwards frontier town—and try to provide some context for the scene, but it doesn't make a damn bit of difference because Mongo is punching out a horse. (The only thing you need to know going in is that Mongo is a big, dumb, muscular thug, and you can get all that just by looking at the guy.) I could go into the logistics of what makes the scene work, getting into concepts of comic timing and expectations and surprise, or discuss the place Blazing Saddles holds in director Mel Brooks's filmography or the place he holds in the history of comedy, but in the end there's nothing to discuss because Mongo is punching out a horse. I can't even go into a detailed description because the clip is only 13 seconds long, and frankly eight or nine of those seconds are just padding for the joke.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that in a world where entertainments are routinely tiered into highbrow and lowbrow, or "acceptable" and "drivel," comedy is often the great equalizer. It's easy for some of us to disapprove of a movie like Blazing Saddles with its penis jokes and fart jokes and heaven knows what other assaults on sophistication and good taste—gods know I've done it countless times—but the movie does not seek our approval, only our laughter. And the thing is that I can sit here with a DVD collection brimming with titles from Fritz Lang and Akira Kurosawa and Louis Malle, all of which I genuinely adore and admire, and yet every time I see Alex Karras take a swing and see the horse go down with a Wile E. Coyote-like splat, soda once again comes flying out of my nose and I have to rewind to watch it again, every time. Roger Ebert once said in a review of a "low" comedy that he laughed at, "That's proof, if any is required, that I still possess streaks of immaturity and vulgarity. May I never lose them." Amen.
Also? Writing about comedy is hard. Maybe that's why comedies don't win Oscars.
