{"id":17344,"date":"2018-01-29T17:07:36","date_gmt":"2018-01-29T22:07:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17344"},"modified":"2018-01-29T17:09:03","modified_gmt":"2018-01-29T22:09:03","slug":"slow-burning-infidelity-and-madness-in-a-w-sandbergs-the-golden-clown-klovnen-1926","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=17344","title":{"rendered":"Slow-Burning Infidelity and Madness in A.W. Sandberg’s The Golden Clown \/ Klovnen (1926)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Yesterday a rare Danish silent screened at the Revue Cinema<\/a> as part of their ongoing series of circus-themed silents, all accompanied by live music.<\/p>\n

A.W. Sandberg\u2019s 1926 remake of his 1917 film Klovnen<\/strong> is a monster. At 128 mins., it\u2019s a lot to digest, though not due to the length, but the gradual slope its characters take before a massive fall that makes up its epic finale.<\/p>\n

This is either extraordinary melodrama or a lot of hot air \u2013 it really depends on one\u2019s tastes for melodrama \u2013 but there\u2019s no denying Sandberg\u2019s power in stretching out how an act of indiscretion occurs, unfolds, ruins, and pushes an artist at the peak of his career to self-destructive depths; only when he\u2019s lost everything does Joe Higgins, former fete of the French nation, think of murder.<\/p>\n

Perhaps part of the film\u2019s problem in attracting fans is its classification: it\u2019s an epic tale of indiscretion; an epic tale of a once joyous clown ruined by anger; and a tale of contrasting relationships pure, too idyllic, and highly improper and finite. It\u2019s not really a tale of a clown going batshit crazy or a film that is itself crazy \u2013 just insanely detailed in dramatizing a catalogue of highs and lows as one man loses almost everything.<\/p>\n

The performances are strong, but star G\u00f6sta Ekman is extraordinary \u2013 which sounds like outright hyperbole, but it takes great skill to keep audiences on the side of an genuinely good man who makes a succession of terrible decisions and misses last chances after being embarrassingly cuckolded.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Golden Clown<\/a><\/strong> was restored in 2006, and is ripe for a Criterion-styled edition, given it\u2019s unavailability on home video, but its limited circulation also means any chance to catch it on the big screen is a great treat, especially with live music, as occurred Sunday January 28th at the Revue, with Jeff Rapsis<\/a> performing his score for 128 mins. straight.<\/p>\n

Check out the lengthy review, and coming soon are some podcasts related to the Revue\u2019s silent film series. Upcoming entries include Paul Leni\u2019s The Man Who Laughs<\/strong> (1928), Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s boxing film (!) The Ring<\/strong> (1927), and the rare Lon Chaney thriller The Shock<\/strong> (1923).<\/p>\n

Coming next:<\/em> reviews of Woody Allen\u2019s Bananas<\/strong> (1971) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask<\/strong> (1972) on Blu from Twilight Time, plus a review of Peter Roffman\u2019s tome Dear Guelda: The Death and Life of Pioneering Canadian Filmmaker Julian Roffman<\/strong> + reviews of several Julian Roffman features and short films.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Review of A.W. Sandberg’s epic melodrama about infidelity, The Golden Clown \/ Klovnen (1926), restored in 2006 and screened with live music by Jeff Rapsis at the Revue Cinema January 28, 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17345,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5513,2562,2563,5514,5520,5515,5516,5517,827],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/Klovnen1926_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-4vK","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17344"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17357,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17344\/revisions\/17357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/17345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}