Action vs emotion

I would like to dedicate this post to the difference between Andy Kaufmans commedia and Jim carreys commedia. They are both two of the greatest comedians of the mainstream american culture. Perhaps this comparision is unfair to Andy Kaufman, since he is not only an actor but also creator of schetches and events that until today stands out as genious. But let us for a moment not take that into the ekvation.

In the movie "Man on the moon" Jim Carrey makes a brilliant portrait of Andy Kaufman. He has the enourmosly hard task of remaking Kafmans performances and at the same time as he is playing Kaufamn, still be funny. Now this is where a lot of the mechanisms of comedy gets really put to theire extremes. Because Jim Carrey can not be funny in excactly the same style and energy as Andy Kaufman were funny. He has to melt his style into Kaufmans style.

And the two styles of Carrey and Kaufman are the two main styles that I define in the "commedia"-family. On one hand, the direct heritage from Commedia dell´Arte, Jim Carrey, in the grotesque, wild outbursts of cartoonlike almost-humans. On the other hand, the grandchild of Commedia dell´Arte, the commedia-clown, Andy Kaufman.

The commedia-clown is not a grotesque play with the outlines of the human gestalte, the clown IS a human. But a total naked human, ripped of all protections such as a refined language, elegant manners and such. If a commedia dell´arte-mask* is a grotesque human gestalte, the clown is a naked human standing in a grotesque situation. One of my favorite-clowns, Joe Dieffenbacher defines comedy as seeing the mind of the clown work, trying to grasp the absurd situation she is in.

The very simple and genial schetch Andy Kaufman invented invites to both the commedia-mask and the commedia-clown.

First we see Andy Kaufman in the original schetch (as i write I don´t have the facts of when and where for this schetch, please help me out if you know)


Ok, so we can now agree about that the schetch has two elements, the waiting and the singing.

Let us now see Jim Carreys "remake". The schetch starts a minute into the movie.



The way I percieve it, Jim Carrey is funnier in the singing-part than Kaufman (sorry Andy). On the other hand Kaufman is way funnier in the waiting-part than Carrey. And this is all because of the different qualitys of the commedia-mask vs the commedia-clown.

Or let us call it action vs emotion.

Because it is the absurd level of energy that defines Carreys comical quality, and this energy needs action. Just as Kaufmans comical quality lies within his total sincere nakedness. And this nakedness reveals his emotional nuances in high details. He needs moments of stilleness to have the possibility to share all the tiny shiftings of emotions that is constantly going on in his inner. Because these emtions tells us that he is not in balance, he he is not fully in control of the level of absurdness the situation implies. And that is funny, we as audience feels that some sort of anarchy is taking place, when suddenly not even those on the stage really understand what the heck is going on. And anarchy is funny.

And if we look at where they are more weak, we find that Carrys waiting not as sincere as Kaufmans, he gets just a bit close to the most dangerous trap a comedian can walk into: to focus on just triyng to be funny. And Kaufmans singin lacks energy, it feels a bit lame compared to the expectation he builds up in just standing still doing squat and nada in live national tv.

So, to sum my first post up, action vs emotion, the grotesque body vs the grotesque situation, Carrey vs Kaufman, these are examples of the two main directions in the commedia family, the commedia-mask and the commedia-clown.

Now that we got that that strait it doesen´t mean that I can go fly, it means that I can go and do whatever i want

-Regina Spector

*In Commedia dell´Arte, all characters are referred to as masks.