Monsieur Verdoux (1947, Charles Chaplin) is a poisonous disillusionment melodrama black screwball serial killer satire existential tragedy morality tale that posits the thesis that good and bad are arbitrary. It’s about accepting your destiny. Or the motto I live by: don’t let no one get you down.
M. Verdoux has this dichotomy depicted in an early scene where he’s murdered one of his wives and burns her remains out behind their house in an incinerator, but he won’t step on a caterpillar. He and the household where he resides with his real wife and son are vegetarian. There’s a bit of moralizing where he tells his son not to pull the cat’s tail. The warning that follows is violence begets violence. We think this foreshadows M. Verdoux's guillotine fate to atone for his murders; but really the subtext is the irony that confronts the matter of justifying survival amidst economic depression and world wars.
M. Verdoux kills old women and ugly women. Even the families of the women he murders and their social circles are depicted as obnoxious, argumentative, and deplorable. The funniest of these wives is the character Martha Raye plays, ANNABELLA BONHEUR, an embodiment of economic resentment. Annabella is sour, loud, ill-mannered, and frivolous with her new money winnings from the lottery.
The midpoint is when M. Verdoux meets THE GIRL, a Belgian refugee he unwittingly lures into a scheme wherein he intends to experiment with a new poison formula, who rekindles his faith in humanity. She’s sweet. Pretty. Young. He identifies with her because she just got out of jail for theft (to survive). And he shares something else in common with her. They both loved and took care of an invalid. It’s sappy shorthand for good natured sacrifice but I’ll let it slide. Because in the end the difference between them is she marries into the industrial military complex, so killing millions will afford her wealth and luxury, but he only murdered 14 women so he’s merely an expendable derelict sentenced to death.
The film gives the impression that M. Verdoux’s ultimate destiny is the guillotine. But that’s oversimplifying. There’s also earlier that line from Schopenhauer, it’s the approach of death that’s terrifying though. Notice how after the stock market crashes in 1932 and there’s the guy with the gun to his head, and the guy plummeting out the window, then we hear what happened to M. Verdoux’s family. We hear that his home was foreclosed on. (But he gave his wife the deed on their 10th wedding anniversary.) So that means we weren’t shown or told, but must assume that he mortgaged that home at some point. He loses his family. But again we don’t get to know how or why. These crucial plot points withheld from us prefigure his destiny.
Monsieur Verdoux is telling us never to give up the fight. And if its sentiment is that the world was falling apart during the great depression because of the collapse of financial institutions, and global military conflicts, that’s pretty much as true today as it was then. So it’s okay to keep your zest for bitterness intact. And love. Just don’t fall into despair. It lulls the mind into indifference.
At first it’s weird how often Chaplin looks at the camera. And how blatant he is when it comes to grandstanding. But it all becomes part of this character he’s created. He took Landru as jumpoff then made M. Verdoux completely his own. I can’t get enough of his romantic pickup lines and false flattery cooing he uses on all the dowagers, spinsters, and uggos. Monsieur Verdoux might be the first screwball legitimately to get away without a hint of sex. It might also be the first black comedy? And yeah for all its misanthropic farce, I do think it balances out with Chaplin’s tender metaphysical allegory. Also why don’t I ever get tired of watching this movie?
M. Verdoux kills old women and ugly women. Even the families of the women he murders and their social circles are depicted as obnoxious, argumentative, and deplorable. The funniest of these wives is the character Martha Raye plays, ANNABELLA BONHEUR, an embodiment of economic resentment. Annabella is sour, loud, ill-mannered, and frivolous with her new money winnings from the lottery.
The midpoint is when M. Verdoux meets THE GIRL, a Belgian refugee he unwittingly lures into a scheme wherein he intends to experiment with a new poison formula, who rekindles his faith in humanity. She’s sweet. Pretty. Young. He identifies with her because she just got out of jail for theft (to survive). And he shares something else in common with her. They both loved and took care of an invalid. It’s sappy shorthand for good natured sacrifice but I’ll let it slide. Because in the end the difference between them is she marries into the industrial military complex, so killing millions will afford her wealth and luxury, but he only murdered 14 women so he’s merely an expendable derelict sentenced to death.
The film gives the impression that M. Verdoux’s ultimate destiny is the guillotine. But that’s oversimplifying. There’s also earlier that line from Schopenhauer, it’s the approach of death that’s terrifying though. Notice how after the stock market crashes in 1932 and there’s the guy with the gun to his head, and the guy plummeting out the window, then we hear what happened to M. Verdoux’s family. We hear that his home was foreclosed on. (But he gave his wife the deed on their 10th wedding anniversary.) So that means we weren’t shown or told, but must assume that he mortgaged that home at some point. He loses his family. But again we don’t get to know how or why. These crucial plot points withheld from us prefigure his destiny.
Monsieur Verdoux is telling us never to give up the fight. And if its sentiment is that the world was falling apart during the great depression because of the collapse of financial institutions, and global military conflicts, that’s pretty much as true today as it was then. So it’s okay to keep your zest for bitterness intact. And love. Just don’t fall into despair. It lulls the mind into indifference.
At first it’s weird how often Chaplin looks at the camera. And how blatant he is when it comes to grandstanding. But it all becomes part of this character he’s created. He took Landru as jumpoff then made M. Verdoux completely his own. I can’t get enough of his romantic pickup lines and false flattery cooing he uses on all the dowagers, spinsters, and uggos. Monsieur Verdoux might be the first screwball legitimately to get away without a hint of sex. It might also be the first black comedy? And yeah for all its misanthropic farce, I do think it balances out with Chaplin’s tender metaphysical allegory. Also why don’t I ever get tired of watching this movie?
No comments:
Post a Comment