Review of the film 'The Man Who Laughs' (1928)

The Man Who Laughs is not exactly a silent film from the German expressionist film period as I have heard in some places, it is rather a silent film that reflects the gothic concerns of Universal Pictures run by Carl Laemmle during the 1920s.

Where stories like Beauty and the Beast were in vogue as the main source of entertainment after the success of The Phantom of the Opera (1925); but I dare to say, with complete certainty, that at least its aesthetic retains the spirit of the movement in each of the frames that compose it under the gaze of Paul Leni, who directed it as his penultimate work before passing away at the age of 44.

One year after the premiere. It doesn't particularly move me into a state of emotional paroxysm, but after having seen it now in its restored edition, I realize that, perhaps, what is most interesting is how Leni builds gothic melodrama with a somber aesthetic that elevates each fragment. of the frame where Conrad Veidt walks to laugh and which demonstrates, above all, his expertise as a craftsman of German expressionism, almost as if it were his cinematographic testament.

Its version is the third to adapt Victor Hugo's novel of the same name, after the French one produced in 1908 and, later, the low-budget German one shot in 1921. Like the source material, it is set at the end of the 17th century in England and narrates the story of Gwynplaine, a man who since he was an orphan child has been deformed with a grotesque laugh that prevents him from showing his emotions and which serves him, by the way, to act as the protagonist in the circus act of a traveling theater run for the philosopher who saved his life along with a blind beauty he loves named Dea, while occasionally being mocked by the crowd who despises him and pays to see him as a phenomenon nicknamed "The Man Who Laughs."

In general terms, Leni's staging uses a wide variety of formal devices that subtly illustrate the disappointment of the character who only wants to be happy next to his blind love, among which the mobile framing in disruptive modalities stands out. move Gilbert Warrenton's camera to unusual places, along with expressionist lighting that immediately captivates my pupils with the bombastic gothic decorations and the more baroque nocturnal atmospheres, as well as placing a monophonic score that takes advantage of the novel use (for its period) of the Movietone system that synchronizes occasional sounds of bells, bangs, and trumpets, despite being a silent tape with intertitles. 

His chapters captivate me for that strange mix between romantic melodrama, gothic terror, and swashbuckling adventure. But what I find truly chilling is Veidt's performance as he uses his enormous expressive range to communicate, with his face and Jack Pierce's prosthetic denture makeup, the suffering of this man with the monstrous smile who is deeply ashamed of his cursed disfigurement and that, against all odds, he fights against the social prejudices of the British aristocracy to which he belongs by inheritance to be free and be with the woman he loves. There are also creditable supporting roles from Brandon Hurst as the King's Machiavellian jester and, furthermore, from Mary Philbin as the sweet woman who lost her sight. All of them adorn sequences that are sometimes predictable until the serialized climax of the persecution that reminds me of Griffith, but which, curiously, I always find entertaining when they outline their parables about love, injustice, and to freedom.