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configurational theory offers an account of all Keaton s gags. We must turn
elsewhere for an understanding of Keaton s themes. The obvious place to
look is not far off. The intersection of Gestalt theory with Bergsonian the-
ory may provide the location of Keaton s particular subject. Both theories
are concerned with thinking and intelligence, but each places different
emphasis on the subject. The automatism gags involve failures of thinking
while the configurational gags involve successful thinking. Both are concerned
with thought, including embodied thought.
Fixation and Insight
Structurally, Keaton seems to counterpoint the ineptness of Johnnie s per-
formance of some physical tasks with moments of resourcefulness and
quickly calculated judgment that seem to establish new levels of precision
human activity. Through the action of the character, humor of the inflex-
ibility variety is balanced by humor of the configurational sort. Two contrary
modes play against each other. Since a task is an amalgam of thought and
action, the formal opposition of successfully executed tasks with failures
presupposes an opposition of two different aspects of intellectual activity, namely,
56 Themes of The General
fixation versus insight. Analysis of major Keaton gags in The General constantly
leads one to postulate either fixation or insight of characters, Johnnie and
others, as the predominant focal points of laughter. From this we can see
that the locus or subject of Keaton s comedy is intelligence, of which insight
and fixation represent positive and negative poles.
It may appear vacuous to describe Keaton s major theme as intelligence,
even as intelligence in regard to performance of physical tasks. One might
argue that intelligence is, in fact, the subject matter of all comedy, and that
intelligence in concrete operations is the subject matter of all slapstick com-
edy. These objections, however, seem misplaced. Intelligence is not the only
mental faculty that comedy appeals to. Some comedy may be understood
under an emotive framework, appealing, as it does, to our affective processes.
Comedy can appeal to our aggressive instincts and to our sexual drives espe-
cially as wish fulfillment. In silent comedy, much of the sadism is clearly
addressed to the darker recesses of the mind rather than to our intelligence,
let alone to our understanding of how things work.
To approach the argument about the generality of our analysis from
another direction, I should point out that in the work of Charlie Chaplin a
whole different mental faculty is addressed, namely that of the visual ima-
gination. Like Keaton, Chaplin s gags have a great deal to do with objects.
However, Chaplin does not use objects in the way Keaton does. He trans-
forms them into other things. Chaplin s prowess is as a mime. He treats objects
metaphorically. A famous example of this is the boot and the shoestrings in
the Thanksgiving scene of The Gold Rush. Here the boot becomes a turkey,
the nails become bones, and the leather laces become spaghetti through
Chaplin s treatment of them. Chaplin s gestures provoke the audience s
visual imagination, enabling us to apprehend other objects, like bones, in objects
we readily identify otherwise, such as boots. The Oceana Roll sequence in
The Gold Rush is another example of Chaplin s expressive power with objects.
In this vein, one can go on adding examples. Perhaps the most famous of
these is the mime with the clock in The Pawnshop. Successively, Chaplin evokes
recognition of the clock as organic, as large machinery, and as a sardine can.
Chaplin s vision is metaphoric; he can see everything reflected in everything
else. His appeal to audiences is on the level of the fanciful imagination. For
example, in Modern Times, he sees bolts everywhere. The tramp represents
a character who sees the world differently from those who view things
solely from a functional, utilitarian perspective. Chaplin is sensitive to the
correlations between the look of objects when they are divorced from a con- [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]