There's something surprisingly endearing about a silent film set in a modern day setting. Most of the homages to the silent era work hard to recapture the look of the 1920s, as if that's the only time we are allowed to use silent techniques. But even something as simple as a McDonald's takes on a different connotation under the plinking pianos and horns of the silent movie soundtrack. Even the soundtrack itself is modernized with tracks that feature basslines and distorted guitar. Most revolutionary of all, though, is Lane himself who casts himself as a "what if" scenario for silent film. What if a black artist like himself had the same opportunities, the same resources as a Chaplin or a Lloyd back in the silent era? What would a black silent comedy star have looked like? Lane isn't as interested for much of the film's runtime with slapstick though there are definitely scenes where he uses it in delightful fashion. Much of his humor is drawn from bait and switches or little looks to the camera. But more than anything else, Lane is searching for pathos. The most obvious corollary film is Chaplin's The Kid which also focused on a poor man who inadvertently raises a child while searching for the kid's mother. Here, however, Lane's characters and their settings are "mythologized" as Ebert put it in his review. There's something noble about Lane's artist, a short and scrappy young man who is a beacon of hope in his environment without becoming saccharine or cloying. The low budget of the film rarely makes itself known. I love the way Lane uses tracking shots (that opening sequence is incredible!) and close-ups. It's a bold recontextualizing of an environment that other filmmakers at the time dismissed as a source of horror, of hopelessness, of crimes and drugs. But Lane looks at that same neighborhood and says "Why can't we find stories of hope and joy?" It's an incredibly endearing experiment.
There's something surprisingly endearing about a silent film set in a modern day setting. Most of the homages to the silent era work hard to recapture the look of the 1920s, as if that's the only time we are allowed to use silent techniques. But even something as simple as a McDonald's takes on a different connotation under the plinking pianos and horns of the silent movie soundtrack. Even the soundtrack itself is modernized with tracks that feature basslines and distorted guitar. Most revolutionary of all, though, is Lane himself who casts himself as a "what if" scenario for silent film. What if a black artist like himself had the same opportunities, the same resources as a Chaplin or a Lloyd back in the silent era? What would a black silent comedy star have looked like? Lane isn't as interested for much of the film's runtime with slapstick though there are definitely scenes where he uses it in delightful fashion. Much of his humor is drawn from bait and switches or little looks to the camera. But more than anything else, Lane is searching for pathos. The most obvious corollary film is Chaplin's The Kid which also focused on a poor man who inadvertently raises a child while searching for the kid's mother. Here, however, Lane's characters and their settings are "mythologized" as Ebert put it in his review. There's something noble about Lane's artist, a short and scrappy young man who is a beacon of hope in his environment without becoming saccharine or cloying. The low budget of the film rarely makes itself known. I love the way Lane uses tracking shots (that opening sequence is incredible!) and close-ups. It's a bold recontextualizing of an environment that other filmmakers at the time dismissed as a source of horror, of hopelessness, of crimes and drugs. But Lane looks at that same neighborhood and says "Why can't we find stories of hope and joy?" It's an incredibly endearing experiment.
