State: California
Country: US
Signup Date: 6/8/2007
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Thursday, April 30, 2009
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Current mood:  pleased Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities
My good Myspace friend, Mike Kocher, 19,
wrote the following essay for his Film Appreciation class. For ease of
reading, I have removed the citations and reformatted Mike's work,
breaking the text into additional paragraphs. Mike's paper was a
monumental undertaking, extremely well-researched; and, in my opinion,
he did a fine job.
Some of the characters who've emerged from that now famous makeup case.
IN THE LONG AND DISTINGUISHED HISTORY OF FILM, I don’t think we have seen a circumstance as unique as that of Lon Chaney. Chaney can be described as an oddity in more ways than one. He made a career out of playing them, but his career could just as easily be called an oddity in and of itself.
In the first era of Hollywood stars, Chaney was one of the brightest. He was a huge box office draw in the silent era and one of MGM’s first big box office leading men. He did this while never playing one romantic lead in his successful career. In retrospect, we have never had another Lon Chaney. The characters he played were odd not evil, ugly but not necessarily monsters, and usually they had the pure desire of love beneath their exteriors. Chaney once said this was the motivation in creating his characters:
“I wanted to remind people that the lowest types of humanity may have within them the capacity for supreme self-sacrifice. The dwarfed, misshapen beggar of the streets may have the noblest ideals.”
I am of the opinion that Chaney never played the romantic definition of a villain in his career. Films today always have clearly defined characters, someone who the audience can identify with as a hero and despise as a villain. A Lon Chaney picture was never confined to that dull standard of character development, and that is why I think he was able to generate such success while playing the breed of character he was so famous for playing. In looking at Lon Chaney’s career, we see some very common themes and ideas that connect his films. In essence, Chaney is always playing very similar characters, and it is a testament to his great skill that he was able to make each one different and intense. If we could sum up his career in one word, it would be “versatility.”
The common glue that binds every Lon Chaney film is the theme of unrequited love. Lon’s characters’ hearts usually belong to a beauty, while the others in the background consider him to be a beast. His characters are all in their own personal Hells; but when they see that beautiful girl, they see it as a way to gain their humanity which the people around them have taken for granted. It should be noted that, in these films, he does not usually win the heart of his maiden. Instead, his attempts leave him in a state of realization. He usually makes peace with himself and the woman he wishes to have, as the curtain draws to a close.
If Lon’s characters did not live to see the conclusion of the film, which they often did not, they always reached a sense of redemption in their dying. Society would forgive them for being what they were, and they would be able to reach that peace they so long sought. Dr. Robert von Dasanowsky, director of the Film Department at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, hit it right on the head with his description of Lon’s characters and the theme of his films:
“With Chaney, the audience understands the human conditions of these characters. They are not to be laughed at, they are to be cried with. His parents were deaf and he had to communicate with them through making faces, and that was something odd and somehow threatening to the mainstream. So, he himself had lived through the experience of being the outsider. Yet, he was the insider because he was not deaf but he understood that experience of being a threat. He wanted to show that the threat was often only in the mind of the beholder.
“He would strive to surprise and even frighten an audience. Then, the greatness of his acting would force the audience to have to deal with these ‘horrific creatures’ as human beings. All of Chaney’s monsters and all of Chaney’s grotesques are three dimensional and more. You cry for them, you worry for them, you feel sorry for them, and you understand that there is a human being there. It wasn’t the makeup; it was the ability to become.”
Chaney was a character actor in every sense. His ability to blend into any role given to him is what got him his first big break in the movie business. Chaney’s bread and butter work in the 1910s was working as an extra out of the Universal Studios bullpen. His ability to stand out while blending in is really incredible. There are a few instances in his pre-1920s work where Chaney is not the star of the picture and yet he becomes the focal point of every scene he is in. In “Outside the Law,” Lon gets third billing as a gangster named Black Mike. Chaney isn't in the film any more than 20 minutes, but he lives and breathes the character and steals the scenes with his intensity. The scenes aren't necessarily all that significant either. Even a scene where Black Mike is sitting at a table having lunch with his gang is fascinating. Chaney becomes the character to the point where he pockets the tip at fade out.
Chaney was affectionately called “The Man of a Thousand Faces” by his peers and fans. Many intended to use the nickname to sum up his makeup artistry, but I believe it is just as appropriate to use it to describe his acting. Every Lon Chaney performance is vastly different from the one that preceded it. The fact is that it would have been very easy for Lon Chaney to become typecast in the same kind of role in any number of genres. The same character archetype is recycled for a number of Chaney films. He played an Asian character four times, a cripple four times, a circus clown twice, and he appeared in three gangster films. The temptation would be there for any actor, I imagine, to re-use some of their techniques from the other films, but Chaney approached his roles with a new eye every time.
There is a clear-cut difference from the poor, old Chinese laundryman Yen Sin from “Shadows” and the rich Chinese nobleman with a proud sense of his heritage in “Mr. Wu.” Chaney has an appreciation and respect for the Chinese culture; his oriental characters aren't racist in the scope of the time. I don't think anyone could have played these complex roles other than Lon Chaney. During the making of “Shadows,” Chaney was by no means the superstar he would become and taking this role was a gutsy move. Yen Sin does not escape all the stereotypes of the Oriental in early cinema, but he is treated as a human being and as the only truly good man in the small town. This was a tough picture for its audience to digest because Yen Sin is essentially a Christ-like figure. Chaney's makeup and characterization for the role are stellar. I see the soul of Lon Chaney in this character. It can be debated that Lon Chaney would never act in a plot as deep as “Shadows.” It was a role he was born to play. Yen Sin fits his saying that “the lowest forms of humanity often have the highest ideals."
Mr. Wu is an Asian nobleman driven to do villainous things by his strict interpretation of his culture. He murders his daughter in an honor killing because she has lost her virginity to an American visitor. Wu is a proud character stuck in the ways of his forefathers, unable to deal with the fact that the world is growing smaller. Again, it would have been easy to engage in stereotypes with this role, or to ham up the performance. Chaney doesn't do this and portrays Wu is an imposing, proud man tragically faulted by his conservative beliefs.
Chaney's cripples are amazing to simply look at. One has to remember that Chaney did not have the advantages of even primitive special effects with these characters. He wore little makeup and appeared as basically himself, with the exception of the contortions which were almost as painful as some of the most elaborate makeups he was famous for. Chaney has to contort his body to create these characters. “The Penalty” contains Chaney's most impressive feat in the use of his body for art. In the film, Chaney plays a man who, as a young boy, had his legs needlessly amputated by an incompetent doctor. Chaney devised a harness which he used to strap up his legs, effectively creating the illusion of being a double amputee. The final product on screen is extremely effective. It is almost impossible to tell that Chaney is not who he is alluding to be.
Upon the release of “The Penalty,” Goldwyn Studios commissioned an additional ending shot of Chaney walking down a flight of stairs, to ensure the audience that he did, in fact, have legs. Chaney did this illusion at a great danger to himself, and could only be strapped into the contraption for 20 or so minutes at a time, to prevent the blood from being cut off to his legs. Any actor willing to do this for his craft exhibits a special breed of dedication. “The Penalty” itself is a strong film but it's very much a product of its time, with anti-Red propaganda rampant throughout. Chaney makes us see past some of the silly plot gimmicks.
Chaney would play two additional cripples, both of them faux cripples. In “Flesh and Blood,” Chaney plays David Webster, a wrongfully prosecuted escaped convict out to find his daughter and get revenge on the actual culprit. To disguise his true identity, Webster moves around town as a man with lower body paralysis. The film itself isn't very noteworthy but it does showcase some fine acting on Chaney's part. In “The Blackbird,” Chaney plays a criminal who creates a false alias for himself in the form of a twin brother he doesn't really have. Chaney’s character can contort his body to the point where his right side looks completely limp and paralyzed. The illusion here is almost as impressive as in “The Penalty.” If the camera caught the right side of Chaney's body moving, the shot would be completely useless. Not only do we get to see this terrific illusion but we also get to see Chaney create it on screen. In a twist scene, we see the character stretch out his neck and arms and unravel to become the crippled “brother” whom we thought was a separate person.
A common question asked is, “Why were these characters so popular?” If Chaney had not played a cripple in his breakout role in the now lost film, “The Miracle Man,” he may have never been discovered. These cripples were a type of character Lon offered a special dedication to. The common theory as to why the role of the cripple and the deformed were intriguing to both Chaney and the audience is the fact that the United States had just participated in World War I, the first modern war. People with deformities like Chaney’s characters were not a rare sight in real life. Science had now given both the power to deform but also to heal to the point where men could live with these deformities. Men came home looking like “The Phantom of the Opera.” His makeups were disturbingly similar to the wounds of many war veterans.
According to Film Historian and Chaney Scholar David J. Skal, “World War I set in motion huge developments in the arts, the dramatic arts, the visual arts and the burgeoning medium of the motion picture. Much of this had to do with grotesquery and distortion.” It is evident that Chaney may have used these men and their plight to create his characters.
Chaney must be given kudos for his skills as a movie makeup artist as well. His abilities were what generated so much of his fame and what endures his legacy to the film fans of today. Chaney was brilliant with makeup, and it speaks wonders for his skills that he has not yet been matched by any contemporary makeup artist. It should be noted that Chaney was first and foremost an actor; the makeup would only highlight and add to the performance, not create the character itself. What Chaney was able to do that makeup artists of today can learn from is create elaborate makeup that accented his face, instead of covering it up. It was always Lon Chaney under the mask and the audience could tell even with the makeups.
The items Chaney would use to construct the faces are actually quite simple. The Phantom’s nose was constructed by simply sticking cigar holders in his nostrils. It shows his ingenuity as an artist to think that he didn't need the heavy prosthetics used today. His makeup is an art in and of itself. Many fans are mesmerized by publicity shots from the film “London After Midnight.” “London After Midnight” contains one of Chaney’s most elaborate makeups, as he plays a vampire. Unfortunately, the film has long since been lost, but the makeup is so memorable that the film has developed a cult following, despite the fact that it hasn’t been seen in 80 years. It shows that you don't need a screen to appreciate the artistry of Lon Chaney. These makeups are just as fascinating in photographs as they are being flashed in front of you.
Any scholar of film probably knows Lon Chaney best from his most famous role in Rupert Julian's, “Phantom of the Opera.” This film too follows the formula of unrequited love. Erik, the deformed Phantom, yearns from his dungeons for the opera singer Christine. He is a homicidal freak, but we can't help but feel a sense of sympathy for him. He did not choose to be the man he is — none of Lon’s characters did. Roger Ebert has this to say about The Phantom as a character:
“It is the idea of the Phantom, really, that fascinates us: the idea of a cruelly mistreated man going mad in self-imposed exile in the very cellars, dungeons and torture chambers where he was, apparently, disfigured in the first place. His obsession with Christine reflects his desire to win back some joy from a world that has mistreated him.”
Every one of Chaney’s characters wants that woman, but their methods to get her vary by character. The Phantom is one of Lon’s most extreme characterizations, and it has given him a somewhat unfair legacy. People have seen “Phantom” as the film that cements Chaney as a “boogeyman.” This really is an unfair way to assess what he was able to do as an actor. It screws-up his intention to not categorize these characters as monsters. What Chaney is asking of his audience is to judge their methods and character, and not their looks or quirks.
Look at the picture “He Who Gets Slapped,” which in my opinion is Lon’s finest outing. In it, Lon plays Paul Beaumont a philosopher whose revolutionary ideas are stolen by a count who financed his work. Paul’s wife leaves him and calls him a “clown.” Paul takes his personal tragedy and becomes HE, a popular circus clown whose act consists of nonstop self-abuse. Paul sees his salvation in Norma Shearer’s Consuelo, a beautiful performer. The Count comes back into Paul’s life; Consuelo’s father gives him her hand in marriage. Paul goes to Consuelo and tells her he loves her; Consuelo takes it for one of HE’s classic jokes and slaps him. Consuelo is in love with somebody else. Paul accepts this and sacrifices his life to let Consuelo have her true love, although he murders The Count and Consuelo’s father. Like the Phantom, Paul’s love drives him to do terrible things. But, unlike Erik, Paul is able to die with a sense of righteousness.
Even Lon’s more sinister characters were driven by this sense of unrequited love. “The Unknown” is easily Chaney’s most bizarre and extreme characterization in his filmography. Lon plays Alonso the Armless, a thief, liar and sadomasochist who longs and lusts for Joan Crawford’s character, Nanon. Alonso has a terrible secret: he is not armless as his act suggests. Over the course of the film, he is willing to mutilate his body and murder his competitor for Nanon’s hand in marriage. There is little to like about Alonso; he is more anti-hero than any character Chaney ever played. Yet, even in his homicidal sexual frustration, we understand his motives and can generate some sympathy. He has amputated both of his arms for his love, only to find her in the arms of another. The irony is as shocking to the audience as it is to Alonso. Rather than continue his quest for Nanon’s hand, Alonso wants his “pound of flesh.” His competitor, Malabar the Mighty, has to loose his arms as well. Alonso’s plan fails and, as Nanon steps in front of a horse ready to pounce, Alonso pushes her out of the way. Only in death is Alonso able to redeem himself for his life of sin.
Lon enjoyed a frequent and storied collaboration with Todd Browning, a director who may have been as eccentric as the characters portrayed in his films. Browning is probably best known for his sound films, “Freaks” and “Dracula”; but, during the silent era, he was able to find great success with Lon Chaney. Browning actually grew up in the circus life that was so often portrayed in his films. His love for the unique is embedded in all of his films, and Chaney was the living definition of the word in his time. Altogether, Chaney and Browning made ten collaborations, eight of which were made during Lon’s star period at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
The subsequent Browning Chaney films gave the actor the opportunity to portray those grotesque characters that challenged his ability and imagination, and thrilled his audiences. In many ways the two men completed each other. In modern psychobabble, writer-director Todd Browning could be seen as Chaney's "enabler." Browning wrote nearly every picture he directed, and it is evident that Browning was as fascinated with Chaney as was the silent era audience. Browning said his films with Chaney seldom evolved in the traditional way. Rather than selecting the story first, he would come up with the concept of the type of character he wanted Chaney to play, then find or write a story to fit those roles. The ante is upped with each and every Chaney collaboration, every character becoming more eccentric and challenging than the last until the pair reached their creative peak in “The Unknown.”
In Variety’s 1927 review of “The Unknown,” the magazine summed up the collaboration bluntly by noting, “Every time Browning thinks of Chaney, he probably looks around for a typewriter and says, 'Let's get gruesome.'”
It can be argued that neither would be as successful had they not known each other. Browning’s professional career, in essence, died with Lon Chaney in 1930. “Dracula” was a major success, but many film historians attribute its greatness to actor Bela Lugosi and Browning’s cinematographer Karl Freund, rather than Browning himself. Browning, no doubt, wanted Chaney to play Count Dracula but Chaney’s death from lung cancer left movie fans with one of the great film hypotheticals. Browning would go on to make his most famous picture, “Freaks,” in 1932. Depression era audiences were not ready for it and shunned the film calling it “graphic” and “distasteful.” The illusion of Lon Chaney pretending to be armless and legless was one thing, but the sight of a real armless and legless wonder lighting a cigar with his teeth was quite another. It speaks for Chaney and his ability to shock and amaze. Audiences wanted to see Chaney bring them into these bizarre scenarios, the illusion was more exciting than reality. Browning’s reputation has been restored to respectability in the generations following “Freaks” but Chaney’s success was what gave Todd Browning the chance to do “Freaks” and “Dracula,” the two films he is remembered best for today.
Lon Chaney was one of the most fascinating actors ever to grace the silver screen. His career and his life were defiant of the Hollywood norms. Never again would the movie-going public embrace an actor like him. Chaney is remembered because he was so talented. Lon Chaney made films about imperfect people in an imperfect world. People going to the films often only want escapism with beautiful settings and people. Chaney confronts the audience with the broken outsider looking for love from a society that hates him. Only Lon Chaney was talented enough to bring people to another world with characters who weren’t beautiful but yearned for their voices to be heard.
Mike Kocher
Film Appreciation Final
April, 2009
This is Mike:
11:05 PM
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