Wednesday, February 5, 2020
Tragedy of the Common Man?
When the unnamed doorman in The Last Laugh is demoted to bathroom attendant, his world collapses. At the end of the film he is estranged from his family, fellow workers and neighbors and only the night watchman gives him succor. Is this film a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense (that is, does he fall because of some tragic character flaw?)? Is it an indictment of the society of the time? A study of the inevitable effects of aging? Or, to put the point another way, whose fault is the doorman's downfall?
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I believe that this film is in fact a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense, where the main cause of the doorman’s downfall was his own character flaw. Throughout the film, there are many factors that play into the downfall of the doorman, but it is his inability to except his aging that caused him to lose his integrity and the respect from his family and the other people in the film. The doorman put all his energy into his job, and because of that, he became oblivious that because of his age he had to take constant breaks and could not his job as well as he could when he was younger. Due the fact that entire life was his job he was not expecting to be demoted and when he was, he could not accept that his social rankings would decrease. He decided to hide this from his family and everyone around him to the point where he was sneaking around and living a lie that those close to him believed. This action got him into trouble with his family when they finally found out the truth. He was going around with his head held high as if his status had not been taken away from him, and as if he was not truly broken inside. He was ashamed of his age and his new job working in the bathroom. When his “lover” found out and ran away from him, it made him feel even worse, and you could tell throughout the film that after that scene he no longer looked as if he had a purpose in life. Throughout the film the audience can see him wither away from the day he received his demotion to the end of the film. The reality was that even though he could not see himself aging, the others around him did and it was because of his denial that caused his own downfall.
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ReplyDeleteThe film, The Last Laugh, directed by F.W. Murnau, depicts an aging doorman as he grapples with his old age detracting from him job and his eventual demotion from his prestigious position from doorman of the Atlantic. While many may argue the doorman's fall from grace is the perfect depiction of an Aristotelian tale, wherein the main character possesses a major character flaw and falls into misfortune because of it, I would argue that the pronunciation of this film's themes depict more of a critique of society as it leads to his downfall rather than any major flaw that this doorman possesses. Many would say the doorman's haughty demeanor and overenthusiastic salutes signal that he takes too much pride in his work or is full of himself, but I believe these gestures are more to embolden the community's morale as opposed to his own self-esteem. For example, he helps one of the children in the community when they are having are rough time, and the movie depicts his actions as wanting to really aid the community and all people inside it not just bolster his feelings of self-worth. This explains how his cheery demeanor turns into a haggard posture when the community he cared for so much turns against him and mocks his situation endlessly. The way his demeanor is affected by society can be observed in many different scenes. One perfect example is exactly when the community finds out and starts mocking him about his misfortune. When he comes into the community in uniform late at night after the woman in black saw him at his new job, his posture remains quite upright still. There is a scene of him saluting someone on their way out of the community as he maintains his posture, still tall as he always is. However, a few moments later, he is bombarded with cackling and laughing from much of the rest of the community as he tries to walk back to his place. During this taunting and jeering from the crowd is when the doorman starts to lose his good form and assume the hunched posture he attains for the rest of the film. This scene proves that the onus of the fall of his status and self-esteem rely solely on the masses of society that outcast anyone who has anything even slightly unfortunate happen to them. All the audience ever sees the people of the community do in the film is stay inside the community, doing chores and gossiping, yet they are so willing to judge his demotion as if it meant he can no longer function, illustrating a culture happy to vulture someone else’s small misfortunes for entertainment. A perfect example of this attitude is shown through the woman in black. She had become somewhat enamored with the doorman and had come to bring him soup while he was on the doorman job. However, she quickly realized that he had been demoted and ran away in horror. There is an excellent scene later when he comes face to face with her. Despite being interested in him before and him still having a job, she dismisses him entirely. When they interact, she has her nose upturned in disgust as she watches him slowly hobble away from her, representing his utter abandonment by society. This film is a clear indictment of society at the time and their unwillingness to accept someone in the face of misfortune with the woman representing the group think that many people fall into instead of accepting their feelings on the matter. The doorman's downfall is obviously at the hand of society, represented by the small community in this film. This is clearly shown through the abrupt change in the doorman's posture that comes with the community's attitude shift. Murnau shows the doorman losing all of his respect and status due to the judgement and sneering of this community, not due to any fatal flaw that he had.
ReplyDeleteThe unnamed doorman in The Last Laugh tells the story of a tragedy in a slightly unconventional way. This is because at first, we see the doorman happy doing his job, being respected by passerby who stop to salutes as he walks through his town, and all music seems to be light and happy. But suddenly, we find that the doorman has been demoted, and the film begins to blur and disorient, showing a dramatic change in mood of the doorman. From then on, the door man stays hunched over, moving slowly without much emotion, showing how preoccupied he is in his mind, and its effects on his world. Yet the reason why this is a slightly unconventional tragedy story, is that the reason the doorman is demoted, is solely due to the degrading of his performance caused by his age, something he cannot control. Usually, in a tragedy, the main character must have a tragic flaw that causes his downfall. However initially, it is no controllable flaw that leads the doorman to his initial downfall. However, the doorman had but his pride and identity in his doorman job which was his own flaw, which caused this initial downfall to spiral into a much bigger problem for him. Since the doorman put his identity into his job, when he lost it, he could not believe it, causing him to do desperate things to feel and appear like he still had the job, which only caused him a greater problem when others found out, and also made his other job performance much worse. His loss of job affected every aspect of his life, and if he did not emotionally invest so much or put his identity so much into his job, then could have had a much better recovery from the news, and still keep a respected and happy life. However his actions and response led gossip and shame to fall on to him as we see when he is walking though the alleys of his town and people begin to pop out behind him, ending with a image of cackling people of his neighborhood. In summary, while the initial downfall of the doorman was not due to his own tragic flaw, or his own doing, his ultimate downfall was caused by his reactions to the loss of his job, making this film a slightly unconventional tragedy.
ReplyDeleteIn the film “The Last Laugh”, the protagonist’s downfall due to losing his job is because of a character flaw he possesses. When the unnamed doorman still worked as a door attendant, the audience can see how respected he was by his community and how high he held himself simply from having a job as great as his. It was obvious how great he thought of himself, constantly saluting the other people in his community, showing off his uniform and even giving away things from his workplace, like the chocolate, to people in his community. He almost seemed to gloat about his position and how great of a place the Atlantic Hotel was. His major character flaw is the fact that he tied his self-worth to his position. A job is an easy thing to take from someone. When there is someone younger, stronger and better suited for a job asking for the position, the company will usually hire them over the latter simply because the new guy would be able to perform better than the older attendant. In this case, the unnamed door attendant was older and frailer than the competitor was and therefore was demoted. Since he tied his self-worth to his status, he was crushed after receiving this news. Even more so, he was devastated to see his community’s reaction to him losing his job, considering he had been acting all high and mighty towards them when he possessed it. His lack of value toward himself allowed other people to prey on him while he was down, and his neighbors did just that; laughing at him, taunting him and making fun of him were just the beginning. He was exiled, in a way; his family and friends turned their backs on him. Because he didn’t think he was anything without the job, people he knew followed suit and treated him poorly and his lack of self-worth without the job only made this problem worse. He couldn’t or didn’t think he should stand up for himself which lead him down a depressing road of sadness and solitude when the movie ends, for the first time.
ReplyDeleteIn the film "The last Laugh" by F.W. Murnau, an elderly, unnamed doorman struggles to accept his fall from grace, and destroys himself in the process of trying to keep his image alive. While some people may argue that this quick descent into what seems to be madness and depression happens as a result of a character flaw of the old man, I completely disagree. Rather than a showing of one man's character flaws, this film is actually a critique on society a whole at the time, and I think the same kind of problems can be seen today. While he does lose his (original) job due to his old age, the man seems to enjoy his job for one main reason: the way that it made people view him. As a doorman with a fancy uniform, he was constantly being saluted by people on the street, and was given a high level of respect by the people living around him. Once the doorman lost his job, he quickly realized that he would lose the respect of the people around him, and that they would treat him as a "bum" of sort... an old bathroom attendant. His fear of this is so great that he goes as far as stealing a key to the place where he works, then breaking in and stealing one of the uniforms he used to own. I don't believe he does this as a result of some character flow, but rather because of the pressure that has been put on him by society to maintain a certain status in his community. A perfect example of this is the women that live around him. They are depicted having tons of respect for him at the beginning of the film, but it completely changes to them laughing at him when he is demoted. Additionally, this kind of situation can still cause problems, as men who have a certain level of respect in their communities are expected to maintain that level no matter what, and can be pressured to keep one job so that they are viewed in a positive light, regardless of whether they are actually happy.
ReplyDeleteWhen the unnamed doorman in The Last Laugh is demoted to bathroom attendant, his world collapses. At the end of the film he is estranged from his family, fellow workers and neighbors and only the night watchman gives him succor. Is this film a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense (that is, does he fall because of some tragic character flaw?)? Is it an indictment of the society of the time? A study of the inevitable effects of aging? Or, to put the point another way, whose fault is the doorman's downfall?
ReplyDeleteIn the film "The Last Laugh" there is a tragedy shown because of the unnamed doormans flaw for denial. He is clearly aging but refuses to accept that and when he gets demoted to bathroom attendant, it strikes him even harder. This is a difficult transition for him because as a doorman he felt like he had infinite power and he had respect from his community. The problem wasn't that he took pride in his job, it was that he let his job define him and take over his life. He had no other way to express himself or live a meaningful life other than that job. Being demoted was almost like killing him because it took away his will and meaning to live. The most tragic part of it all is the way he is treated after he is demoted. As if his own self worth wasn't already destroyed, he was ridiculed and outcasted by a community of people that used to respect and love him.