Producer
Leopold Hoesch
Director
Henrike Sandner
Producer
Lukas Hoffmann
Genre
Documentary
Broadcaster
arte
Length
1 x 52'
Editor
Ulrich Stein
Year
2015
Slapstick!
The art of failure

Watch out, banana peel! - A well-intentioned warning, but in vain in slapstick, because there things turn against people with relish. But slapstick is also the triumph of the comedian over failure. The film tells the story of this comic film genre: from its masters Chaplin and Keaton to Tati, the last great "wordless" comedian, to its rebirth in animated film.

Slapstick was the ideal film genre for the silent era. But slapstick is also an attitude that makes it easier to bear the world and the failure in it. For we are all in these poor creatures who stumble and fall by proxy. Our laughter reflects our own fear of chaos. The documentary tells the story of this comic genre, which found its way from the stage to the screen in the silent film era. The Frenchman Max Linder was one of the early international stars until America discovered the genre for itself: Buster Keaton's dark hypnotic gaze, Harold Lloyd's wild escapades and Charlie Chaplin's poetic loser poses made film history. The talkies seemed to be the caesura, the abrupt end of the grandiose body art that enchanted so many people. But Laurel & Hardy with their fast-paced chases and the Frenchman Jacques Tati with his slapstick of things kept slapstick alive during this period. And the journey continues, slapstick is far from dead. In animated film it climbs to a new level: physical boundaries of actors no longer exist, the characters plunge into every catastrophe with relish. And at the same time they remind us of the great masters and the time when it all began.

Slapstick! The art of failure

Watch out, banana peel! - A well-intentioned warning, but in vain in slapstick, because there things turn against people with relish. But slapstick is also the triumph of the comedian over failure. The film tells the story of this comic film genre: from its masters Chaplin and Keaton to Tati, the last great "wordless" comedian, to its rebirth in animated film.

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