When I see a film in a theater, I
spend almost as much time observing the other moviegoers as I do staring at the
screen. I’m not some creepy, trenchcoated voyeur, but witnessing the unbridled
reactions of strangers to something as intimate as art is a rare opportunity
for insight into your fellow man.
As an example, what one person finds
shocking another may think tame, and this was never more evident — both in
the audience and on the screen — than with The Aristocrats, a
boundary-pushing documentary by Paul Provenza and Penn Jillette that features
comedians analyzing and illustrating the great lengths — as well as the
disgusting depths — to which some will go to get a laugh.
Besides being the title of the film,
“The Aristocrats” is also the name of a dusty joke that functions as sort of a
secret handshake among funnymen. The basic premise finds a man pitching a
rather vulgar family act to a booking agent. The raconteur is then at liberty
to riff as he or she pleases as to exactly what the act contains, and the
challenge is to make it as funny and as filthy as possible. Then when the agent
asks what all this vile depravity is called, the man answers, “The
Aristocrats!” (Drew Carey informs us that he adds a Mexican Hat Dance-type
flourish at the end, which he feels really drives it home.)
Not terribly funny, is it? That’s
because “The Aristocrats” is what Paul Reiser calls “the opposite of a joke,
really” — the punchline is actually a complete letdown and, if the joke is
told correctly, quite irrelevant. The humor, therefore, lies in the improvisational
part: Nothing is too gross (bodily fluids abound in most tellings of the joke),
too taboo (bestiality! incest! necrophilia!), or too random (white slavery?
blimps?), and the joke can be as abbreviated or as lengthy as desired. Dana
Gould, now a Simpsons producer, says he once told a two-hour version of the
joke… and then botched the punchline. Apparently, calling it “The Aristocats”
is an all-too-common problem. Damn you, Disney!
The
Aristocrats also provides a snapshot of the bigger picture. Chris Rock
reports that black comedians could work as blue as they wanted because they
weren’t concerned about getting on TV. Society still frowns upon excessive
obscenity by and even around women (Phyllis Diller claims to have fainted upon
hearing “The Aristocrats”), and the shock in Sarah Silverman’s creatively
disturbing spin on the joke is achieved by putting herself in it. Whoopi
Goldberg wouldn’t get too crude either — “I’m trying to be genteel and shit”
— but her telling in which foreskin is used as a part of the act had the male
audience squirming.
Gilbert Gottfried’s rendition of “The
Aristocrats” at Hugh Hefner’s Friars Club roast is touched upon by a number of
interviewees, who recall that after the crowd turned on Gottfried thanks to
some post-9/11 jokes, he trotted out a brilliant bit that had the previously
hostile crowd eating out of his hand and Rob Schneider literally rolling around
on the floor.
Other highlights include actor Kevin
Pollak’s version of the joke, which he delivers a la Christopher Walken, as
well as George Carlin’s almost scholarly observations about the art of comedy.
And thanks for the education, Andy Dick: I had already heard tell of the Rusty
Trombone, but Strawberry Shortcake is a new one on me. Well, not “on me,”
but…oh, never mind.
Red
tape is red tape, whether you’re navigating the highest corridors of power
or just trying to collect your hard-earned military pension. In the sweet and
sly Tasuma,
former soldier Sogo buys a grain mill on credit for the hard-working women of
his Burkina Faso village under the belief that his pension will arrive as
promised. But bureaucratic snafus delay his payment, so Sogo must make daily
bicycle trips to the government offices while trying to keep his new creditor
at bay.
Sogo’s devoted wife is not entirely
on board with his purchase, and Sogo’s nephew is smitten with the chief’s
daughter but thinks she’s been pledged to the monogamous Sogo. Meanwhile, the
possibly crazy former schoolteacher looks like Marvin Gaye and documents the
goings-on with a blue camera whose shutter sounds suspiciously like the bell of
a bicycle. The phrase “colorful village life” is a clichรฉ for a reason.
Writer-director Daniel Kollo Sanou
uses primeval narrative devices like the singing of songs to keep the viewer
up-to-date with the happenings on the screen, but when the silver-haired Sogo
is offered the chief’s teenage daughter, Sanou proves he ain’t above a
well-placed spit-take.
The Aristocrats(NR), directed by
Paul Provenza, is playing at the Little Theatres. | Tasuma (NR), directed by
Daniel Kollo Sanou, is screening at the George Eastman House’s Dryden Theatre
on Friday, September 9.
This article appears in Sep 7-13, 2005.
