Film Analysis

Deer Beeman,

This is draft one of my paper for film analysis class. If there is something I am missing or miss taking for meaning and you want to call my bull shit. Please do! Then I wont sound green when presenting these concepts to the class.

Der Letzte Mann (The Last Laugh)
Directed by F. W. Murnau
1924

I know dude (Murnau) from his 1922 classic of horror Nosferatu. Murnau is a cinematic boss of the German Expressionistic movement. His mastery of editing and the camera make his name synonomys with Spielberg, Griffith, or the modern Tarantino.The Last Laugh is the story of an aging Hotel Porter that must face his humanity.
One day durring a storm he is forced to carry in luggage that is heavy and eventually sets in to motion the demise of the old Hotel Porter. Murnau uses visual story telling to the maximum. The film is in the firmament of cinema because of its complete self reliance on film to tell a narrative. Murnau challenged himself to create a work that was completely free of title cards. This is ground breaking because for the first time the audience is being asked to think and analyze visual metaphors through shadows to create a story using only acting set design and reliance on the audience to think hard about what the message is. This silent film breaks form, and that is kinda risky grounds. Two year prior to this piece, Murnau's Nospheratu, the standard three act narrative for the screen relied heavily on the director directing the audience toward the greater theme of the narrative.
Murnau was a pioneer because of how he used successful visual rhythms to create an engaging three act feature lenghth narrative. At this time film was still in its very formative years. We call these old works experimental not because they break the laws that govern cinema, maintaining over arching order in a world of three act structure. People like Joseph Campbell would eventually come to label and map the progression of a Monomyth. Through my personal growth I have also found that Kurt Vonnegut makes it a visual representation. Vonnegut set the precedence by scribbling down the Monomyth on paper and making it a very tangible thing.
 We hail these works as examples of directors and crews and actors and musicians that created some of the first examples of structure. This continues today. When we expect a disorienting frontal shot of a drunken character we can think of any number of modern horror films that use this technique to build anxiety and a feeling of urgency, think Uma Therman in Pulp Fiction. Murnau used this technique to build to a moment of apotheosis in the last laugh after the Hotel Porter has been striped of his rank and he has stolen it for one final night of happiness a lot like Cinderella and her ball.
 Another interesting development in The Last Laugh that I noticed was the usage of frames. At the very beginning the main character, Father Time I came to call him instead of just Hotel Porter, dutifully does his job. He smiles holds doors for women, helps them in and out of taxies. It does not even matter when it is raining out and he is the only hotel employee that has to deal with wet rich folks coming through the turning glass doors. He has a moment of desperation and morality when he tries to lift a luggage case that is too heavy for his frames age. He has to recover for a second but soon he is back to work happily, a paternal figure I would argue. He literally poses for a proletariat style portrait when he steps back out in to the rain. He steps out through a door way, two bell hoops on wither side standing like pillars or representations of extreme wealth. There in the middle is the old man battered and down going to happily do his work, his coat keeps him warm and dry, and he is able to do the job and attend his post. There is lightning in the back ground of this scene and I believe that Murnau places the camera at a low angle to elevate and glorify the old Father Time. Making him a hero of the proletariat about to cross the threshold in to a series of trials and tribulations that will question his very essence.

-jslm