SJ Fowler is a writer, poet and performer who lives in London. His work aims to encapsulate an expansive understanding of what poetry and literature can be – exploring the textual, visual, asemic, concrete, sonic, collaborative, performative, improvised, curatorial – through 40 publications, 200 performances in over 40 countries, 4 large scale event programs, numerous commissions, collaborations and more. His work has been commissioned by Tate Modern, BBC Radio 3, Somerset House, Tate Britain, London Sinfonietta, Southbank Centre, National Centre for Writing, National Poetry Library, Science Museum and Liverpool Biennial amongst others. http://www.stevenjfowler.com
What the Man who Laughs can Tell us about Masculinity
By Jaylan Salman
Silent cinema is a mystery to generations that have gone way past the missing dialogue and artistic expression. But as the filmmaking process progresses and avant-garde art dominates a rather dull cinematic world after the introduction of online platforms and networks that exist purely in cyberspace, seeking different and more experimental forms of cinematic experiences has become -strangely- more mainstream.
The origin of the Joker character started in the silent film, giving it a hint of popularity. However, the idea of disfiguring men playing roles that hover on the verge of sympathy vs. non-sympathy could tell a lot about modern society when seen through the light of a politically-correct-driven cinema.
Lon Chaney and Conrad Veidt were two actors recognized for their aggressive masculinity that existed between machismo and the dream-pop verse of soft boys. In their roles, they played dark men, haunted and wounded by society’s addiction to normative beauty aesthetics. As part of the interloping male/female gaze, beauty ideals demanded that Lon and Conrad become misunderstood monsters. They had to play the classic man-monster trope in a Classic Hollywood setting without missing the romanticized touch in the later films. To use Conrad in the classic film version of “The Man Who Laughs” is to subvert our vision from his heinous features to what is more or less masculine representation onscreen. Chances are, man-monsters have been a fascination for centuries. In worlds such as Victor Hugo’s novels, man-monsters are deformed masculine figures, usually crossing paths with fragile, rather petulant women who either defy their independent aesthetic “ugliness” or seem undeterred by it.
“The Man Who Laughs” is not an exception to what Hugo considers ugly, encouraging readers or viewers to judge these characters for their looks, even if their qualities usurp the physical. His cruelty in creating the malformed men-beasts of his writings encompasses a more nuanced analysis of the social and political contexts in which his stories existed.
Enter “The Man Who Laughs” L'Homme qui rit, a less popular novel by Victor Hugo which uses the bored French noblemen and the absurd playfulness of the aristocracy as a social critique of classism, aesthetics, and in many ways, ghoulish masculinity which dominated novels of the romanticism era. This essay tries to draw a comparison or rather a constructive analysis of representing the main protagonist Gwynplaine in the silent 1928 film and the 2012 musical version through both actors chosen to play him and what that tells about modern masculinity and bestiality.
In other films where the human monster appears, it’s through the lens of the bizarre, this carrier of a penis wreaks wrath and fear into the hearts of the fine ladies of the black and white (or silent) cinema. He is feared, despised, and “othered”. The monster is the mutant anti-hero to the chiseled chad. For Batman, there’s the Joker and the Penguin. For James Bond, there’s Alec Trevelyan and Le Chiffre. But in the 1928 “The Man Who Laughs” the mutant man-monster is seen through a sympathetic lens, played by Conrad Veidt, a German Lon Chaney who specialized in the physically displeasing characters who reigned the German Expressionist films in the 1920s.
The demonic grin and crazy eyes contrast with the enforced laughter and mirror Gwynplaine’s abstract torture of being forced to live with his expressionist face while using his eyes to try and reveal his internal agony. Veidt could not be a better actor to embody the brutal fragility of Gwynplaine, his eyes trapping a thousand emotions, all suffocated through his emblematic Glasgow smile. As a silent-film performer, Vedit uses extended poses, stalled gestures, muscular control over the fluency of movement, and extreme crookedness in posture followed by sudden, erratically paced movements. His performance is an extreme expression of the character’s inner conflict conveyed through eye contact, body quivers, facial tics, and a body motion that oscillates between the stifled and the frantic.
Veidt’s Gwynplaine is a rare breed of masculinity, one that does not comprise a menace to society. It is neither inviting nor appealing, it off puts rather than revels in the charm of the ugly. His relationship with the female protagonists. In 1928, the love story between Gwynplaine and Dea feels like a gothic dream; bestiality turned into romance. While in the 2012 version, the plotline that involves their love is more nuanced and erotic, using both actors’ sex appeal in their favor, creating a story that is both poetic and earthy.
The 2012 French adaptation has clear Tom Tykwer vibes, although directed by Jean-Pierre Améris. The influence of color and atmosphere, as well as the larger-than-life exaggerated depiction of the English aristocracy, has given it a different dimension than its silent 1928 counterpart. It started with picking the actor who played the main protagonist, Canadian androgynous heartthrob Marc-André Grondin as Gwynplaine, and through the complete transformation of the main protagonist casting choice, the film took a dramatic shift toward an undeniably interesting -if a bit less mystique- angle. Grondin is handsome, dark, gender-bending, and homoerotic.
Jean-Marc Vallée’s c.r.a.z.y, a coming-of-age tale that saw Grondin being the archetypal dreamboy/softboy within an LGBTQ context, solidified his softboy and fluid form of masculinity. Grondin as Gwynplaine had nothing to do with Veidt’s. This 2012 version of Gwynplaine was handsome in an “imperfect way”, taking the film narrative afresh.
The 2012 Gwynplaine was fragile, emasculate, beautiful, and scarred. The movie portrayed his love story with Dea in an ethereal, dreamy sense, unlike the 1928 version where Gwynplaine was fearsome, appearing to emerge from a nightmare, his face a work of art that hid behind it layers and layers of repressed fear, torment, and agony. In the 1928 version, Gwynplaine could barely move a facial muscle. In the 2012 version, Gwynplaine could reveal himself through his semi-deformed face, the spectrum of human expressions “happiness, fear, sadness, and love” evident on his features regardless of his mutated cheeks and lips.
The silent film medium of 1928 created a symbolic meaning of how Gwynplaine was used and abused by the haunting presence of the people around him. It glorified its freakish looks, unashamed of being attacked by a better understanding of the language or depiction of a non-normative person regarding beauty standards and aesthetics.
Using words like “ghoulish,” “freaky,” and “ugly” with liberty to describe this silent version of Gwynplaine in which director Paul Leni reveled in his protagonist’s disproportionate features that defied what it meant to be wholesome and complete. But in the 2012 adaptation of Hugo’s novel, Gwynplaine had a voice and thick luscious black hair and dazzling eyes, his Glasgow smile merely an afterthought, a meditation on what it meant to be freaky and not freaky, as if Gwynplaine walked the thin line between normalcy and bizarre.
To say that one version is better than the other is a mistake or -for better lack of terms - a problematic way of evaluating cinema as an art form. The Man Who Laughs conjures a sense of French cinema with the grimness and intolerable cruelty of Victor Hugo’s politicized commentary on aristocratic society. This separates the art from the artist, the film interpretation and adaptation from the heart and soul of the filmmaker’s intent. The Man Who Laughs might not be a timeless story, but its adaptations are a revelation and necessary for lovers of film and art worldwide.
The Winter of 2023
By Christopher Bernard
The winter of 2022
a wind of iron and crystal blew.
In spring a gale attacked the park
Shredding his last piece of heart.
In summer’s dead zone he did dwell
Till rain and frost bathed fever’s hell.
Now winter has come round again.
The twisting seasons never end.
The winter of 2023
A white hand swept across the sea.
A palace of ice rose in the east,
Towers of snow in a waste of peace.
The year before it leaves a scar
Of fire and talisman of war.
It leaves behind a memory
Sweet and bitter as dark honey.
_____
Christopher Bernard’s latest collection of poems, A Socialist’s Garden of Verses, won a 2021 PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award and was named one of Kirkus Reviews’ “Top 100 Indie Books of 2021.”
OUR HOME IS BLEEDING
And night comes like a thief, with a gentleness that caresses
the eyes with a gleaming broken ray written on a brittle glass
disappearing into the horizon like broken sparks of flames,
and then night falls like stars ready to devour our hopes.
The afternoon is dead with barrows lurking in our palms ,
Our dreams down like a warzone burnt into ashes by the
Bombings in our tongues and throats which our hearts can only hear.
It is a cold coming, our dreams of having a brick over our dangling head,
Ready to be broken into pieces by the muzzle under the bomb of bazooka.
Let there be hopes as the gwagwalada river flows in the tacit lust of
Our cauliflowers_ drips of the night’s velvets on our sparkling rivulents.
Can we be pieces and faces bonded by unity and aspirations of better future?
Can we be the race with our wings not sunken with only dreams?
Can we be the home to the sweats and blood of our own self?
After this and thats, we could only cuddle our broken spirit in that cocoon
Buried underneath our blankets.
Let there be a NIGERIA with realms of aspirations in our blood,
Let the great labor of our heroes be not in vanity washed in pain.
Let there be a nation free from the cuff of servitude and pain.
Tajudeen Muadh Bayo, lightening pen X, is a poet from Nigeria. His works appear forthcoming on magazines including Afrihill Press, Scars Tv and others. He’s also a member of the Hilltops Creative Arts Foundation.
A Dream In a Requiem
it reminds me the time I took remnants
of my soul—to sail the river of memories,
to the world
where deads vomit tears and saliva,
where a river has nothing to offer
but a skull of its dead son.
I, once heard a story of
how the soil married a seed;
and how men enthroned themselves
to the bed of kings in the hell.
when the clock is asleep—
men grow wings
to witness how an anthill
transforms into mountain–how it bloom flowers
that turn red, pink and blue, black.
now, tell me how our name fades
& how we'd paint our eyes red?
Mubarak Said is the 3rd runner-up of the poetry category of the 2022 Bill Ward Prize for Emerging Writers. His works are forthcoming and published in many literary magazines national and international as imspired magazine, Afrihill press, World Voices Magazine, Icefloe Press, Literary yard, Beatnik Cowboy, Piker press magazine, Teen Literary Journal, ILA magazine, Icreatives review, the yellow house magazine, williwash magazine, Pine Cone Review, Synchronized chaos, Susa Africa, madswirl magazine, Applied Worldwide, Opinion Nigeria, Today Post, Daily Trust, Daily Companion and elsewhere.
It’s Hayward’s Fault!
Hey there,
We’re neighbors, you know
Yes, in fact I run right through
the heart, of the Heart,
Of the Bay.
That curb that’s broken,
That fence that’s shifted,
Those cracks in your plaster—
Yep, that’s me.
No one pays me much attention—
Though they should!
Attention follows my cousins,
Loma Prieta, 89,
and San Francisco, 06.
But before 06
I was the talk of the town.
“The Great One,”
you called me,
And I’m still here,
Right Here,
In the center of every thing
you love!
Loma Prieta was near
Santa Cruz,60 miles away!
San Fran 06 wasn’t even
in San Francisco,
But offshore, out in the Pacific.
Yet I’m right here,
snaking my way
along Mission Blvd.
through homes, freeways,
churches, hospitals
U.C. Berkeley even,
And frankly,
your inattention
is beginning
to bore me.
Make no mistake,
I’ve been bored before,
October 21, 1868,
To be exact.
The cure for boredom
is excitement—
and boy did I deliver!
Rumbling, roaring, reverberating--
I twisted, I turned,
Toppling chimneys off walls,
Houses off foundations,
Two stories became one,
Large cracks split the earth,
Springs went dry,
Springs gushed forth,
And the ground undulated--
Wave after wave
Upon nightmarish wave:
Taking life from many;
Sending some into such panic
That they lost their mind
Before, satisfied, I settled,
Once again.
There were few of you
here then,
But now there are millions—
MILLIONS,
AND I’M BORED AGAIN!
Hey, did I mention
that we’re
neighbors?
Close,
close
close
neighbors!
The Challenge
The challenge,
Spoke my cousin,
Is for me, a practiced poet,
To write a positive poem
About Trump.
“Huh?” I gasped,
Write something positive
About the pathological liar?
The lifelong crook?
The egotistical egotist?
The defiler of our democracy?
Hmmmm!
But then it dawned on me—
I never liked George Bush,
But when compared with Trump,
He seems a shining star.
So thank-you, Donald.
You are so bad,
You made even Bush seem good.
Putin on the Ritz
Vladimir, oh Vladimir,
Oh have you met Vladimir,
Vladimir the DONald’s idol.
Vladimir, oh Vladimir,
Trump thinks that he’s such a dear,
To Donald, dear Vlad is vital.
Vlad hacked Hillary so Trump could win it all,
Trump just won’t admit this,
He’s bursting with gall.
But he’s now the puppet,
In Vlad’s gaming hall
He’ll sell, us out, to Vladimir.
Vladimir, oh Vladimir,
Oh have you met Vladimir
Vlad the great PUPPet master.
Vladimir, oh Vladimir,
Trump thinks you’re hot, Vladimir,
He cares not that you’re a bastard.
But Vlad has dear Donald,
Right by the short hairs,
He wants NATO weakened
As much as he dares,
And Donald will help him
Like nobody cares
Cuz he’s under the spell of Vladimir!
Vladimir, oh Vladimir,
Trump thinks of you like a mirror,
Thus you must be the best of them ALLLLLL,
Donald thinks that Vlad likes him
Because he’s so smart,
He can’t comprehend
That Vlad don’t give a fart,
That Vlad’s only goal
Is tear NATO apart,
Trump’ll help because it’s Vladimir.
Scream!
It is better to scream than to be screamed at,
So go ahead and scream!
Scream for every kernel on every ear of corn in every cornfield in Iowa.
Scream for a time when gold doubloons are no longer necessary for the short-term rental of a phosphorescent tree house in a virgin wood.
Scream for all the catatonic pilgrims on the road to nowhere.
Scream for Christopher Marlowe.
Scream for Philip Marlowe.
Scream for the amoebae, the protozoa, the paramecia.
Scream for all the juke joints in all the emergency rooms of all the papier-mâché palaces.
Scream for the glen plaid-clad elocutionists who come knocking at your door.
Scream for all the dead pet turtles flushed down the toilets of New York City by indifferent children of the sixties.
Scream for the plumbers.
Scream for the right to whimper.
Scream for brushes, and bobby pins, and carburetors, and noodles.
Scream for the sad, abandoned clam diggers.
Scream for the wall-eyed pike, because if you don’t, who will?
Scream for an end to calcified beginnings.
And scream for those who’d rather you didn’t.
Just get out there,
Open your mouth as wide as you dare,
And scream!
Peter Cherches’ next collection, Things, a mix of prose and poetry, will be published by Bamboo Dart Press in April. He has published widely since 1977 and boycotts all journals that charge submission fees.
