COCTEAU (Jean) - Lot 268

Lot 268
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1000 - 1500 EUR
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COCTEAU (Jean) - Lot 268
COCTEAU (Jean) A lovely passage by Jean COCTEAU on the sources of laughter in theater and cinema: “For people, laughter is the counterbalance to tragedy. Irresistible, it opens even the most reserved people right down to their souls. - Yet cinema, in all its novelty, offered laughter a greater opportunity than the theater. We knew tragic heroes, but we hadn’t yet had—since Arlequin—a comic hero. - It was an era when even in appearance and costume, comedy had a strong foundation. Stiff collars, bow ties, boater hats, morning coats, striped pants, gaiters, a flower in the buttonhole—if this attire became a charm worn by Arsène Lupin, it helped my “bloodhound” wonderfully to become the clumsy lover who risks sitting on his beloved’s little dog. Limier was, in a way—without the added elements of poverty and Jewish melancholy—the precursor to Charlie Chaplin, and while a deep sadness did not seem to form the backdrop to his pranks, he was nonetheless a sort of victim of fate’s Machiavellian schemes... - Let us salute Max Linder and... those who bring him out of that shadow that every star of the theater or film passes through after death. - Max Linder’s case adds further evidence to our thesis. One cannot be funny without some drama, and perhaps Linder’s burlesque genius stemmed from a defense against the profound loneliness of his soul.” 3 A4 pages written in ink (slightly faded by the sun), with a few cross-out marks and additions in the margins, mounted on mat board and set in a wooden-and-glass frame.
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