Blazing Saddles by Mel Brooks - Movie Review Example

Blazing Saddles There has been much criticism of Mel Brooks as a director, and this movie got a lot of attention, both positive and negative.However, the fact that it still sells is testament to its success in its primary goal, entertainment. In fact, the humor of this movie is responsible for its success as social commentary. The movie premiered in 1974, within a decade of the worst racial riots in America, but its setting a century earlier made it acceptable to all but the most bigoted in the audience, and nobody could deny it was funny. Pauline Kael criticized the film for being too spontaneous and unplanned, but that was also one reason it was so successful and its message was more palatable. “In "Blazing Saddles," the story is about a modern black hipster (Cleavon Little) who becomes sheriff in a Western town in the eighteen-sixties—a core idea without much energy in it to start with, a variant of the plot of such movies as "The Paleface," with Bob Hope. (pp. 378-80)” (Kael, Pauline 2006) Brooks has always used his power in Hollywood to try to convey a message, and he seems to get away with it more than any other person in film, because he is very funny. Kael missed the point of intentional cliché in this film and criticized it as something it was never intended to be: original. “Brookss sense of whats funny has sunk to sour, stale faggot jokes, and insults, and to dirtying up mildewed jokes, as if that would make them fresh.” (Kael, Pauline 2006) The movie was not just a commentary on social issues, though it did that well, it was a spoof of westerns and other movie genres which were often vehicles for social criticism. The jokes which Kael calls mildewed were used to make a very complex point about racial and other forms of bigoted humor, making them even funnier as a result. The social climate of the mid-seventies was in transition. Racial problems had peaked in the sixties with riots, the deaths of civil rights workers, marches and protests and the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. By 1974 the climate of protest had cooled some, though there were still many problems and many groups which suffered under discrimination. However, racial protest in literature goes back more than a century, beginning with writers like Mark Twain (Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer) and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) (Uncle Tom’s Cabin) and continuing with those like Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird) and Fannie Hurst (1959) (Imitation of Life). There have been movies made of all of these and they were each quite influential and they all won awards. Mark Twain`s classic novels about life on the Mississippi were extremely controversial, but his fame, wit and writing skill made them best sellers and they were made into several films over the years. Uncle Tom`s Cabin, a story of slavery, cruelty and escape, was based upon the life of Reverend Josiah Henson, who was instrumental in the establishment and operation of the underground railroad, and while there is really no modern version of this book on film, it influenced more than a dozen important films. ``Altogether between 1903 and 1927, at least nine films titled Uncle Toms Cabin were made in the United States, making it the most-filmed story of the silent era, and probably still the most frequently filmed American novel.`` (Railton, Stephen 2007) The book To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, Harper 1960) won a Pulitzer prise and became an Academy Award winning (1963) film starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the hero lawyer of the story. Crespino (2000) said of it that, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism." Other films have included Hurst`s ``Imitation of Life``, which was made into an award winning film twice with blockbuster casts, and William Rose`s (1967), ``Guess Who is Coming to Dinner``, with Katherine Hepburn, Spenser Tracy and Sydney Poitier, which won multiple awards. All of these were serious films which dramatically exposed and discussed racial issues in America, and all of them influenced Mel Brooks and his film, ``Blazing Saddles``. Blazing Saddles uses comedy to communicate its point, that prejudice is very narrow-minded and detrimental to both the victim and the one imposing discrimination, or society as a whole. It manages to bury the “lessons” totally under slapstick spoof. Many in the audience miss the commentary on a conscious level almost entirely, just enjoying the humor. However, much of the humor is only funny if we realize the meaning behind it. Some people know there is something wrong with the emperor’s clothes, but they just are not sure what. ”The Pale Face” (1948), mentioned earlier by , had Bob Hope as the husband of Calamity Jane, who is trying to find out who is smuggling rifles to the Indians. This possible contributed to the ideas in Blazing Saddles also, and it was very funny. There was an earlier version with Buster Keaton (1922) which was actually closer to the plot of Blazing Saddles, so close, in fact, that it must have had an influence on the film. This version has Keaton as a butterfly collector who wanders into an Indian village while chasing a butterfly. The Indians have vowed to kill the next paleface they see, because the oil barons are attempting to take their land. Keaton winds up leading the fight against the oil tycoons and is made honorary chief. ``Blazing Saddles`` was never meant to be either pure comedy or pure social criticism. It was, instead, a comic look at both the folly of discrimination, especially racial, by spoofing the literature, including film, and the often shallow reach of social commentary. It also spoofs the western film genre as a whole, using it as vehicle for a totally farcical story of extreme discrimination. The plot requires a tremendous suspension of disbelief, but with the all star cast and the wit, the audience can see it as just another lovely fairy tale. The messages, in the best style of excellent advertising copy, sneak through unnoticed. Seeing this film simply as a comedy is enough for a large portion of the audience, because the jokes, even the clichés, are funny to all but a few jaded critics. One might expect the critics to actually ``get it``, but some simply missed the point of this movie. Because one must have a large enough sample of films in the same style in order to have a genre to spoof, film spoofs are relatively recent, since film is considerably younger than print literature. However, there is actually another, more recent, film which was a gigantic spoof of the entire industry that many critics have panned also, simply because they missed the joke: Starship Troopers. Because it reminds one of the Heinlein novel it was very loosely based upon, it is presumed by many to be serious science fiction with a little humor thrown in here and there. However, after watching this film several times, and studying other modern films of this era, I found dozens of lines taken from famous films of all genres. It spoofs every major genre just on the basis of the formula of the plot. The only serious thing in this movie is the underlying theme that human beings will always fear differences, and the serious statement about how two dimensional most entertainment has become. Everything else is a sarcastic joke. It makes serious fun of audiences and audience mentality, by providing nudity in absolutely ridiculous fashion. It exaggerates violence until it becomes practically boring, and uses clichés from many sources, both cinematic and written. Somehow I think these guys must have seen Blazing saddles and decided to take film spoof one step further. Starship Troopers laughs at the media as a whole, television news, and movies. It shows newscasts that are completely melodramatic, and shows reporters getting killed in order to “get the news”. Blazing Saddles concentrates upon spoofing western films and restricts its clichés mostly to that genre, racial and political jokes and commentary on broadcast news. One really interesting statement which falls ineffectively on many is that everyone on the frontier town is named Johnson. That makes the name cliché. The basic plot of this Blazing Saddles is, in itself, a witty spoof. We have an exaggerated group of really bad guys who want to take over a town for profit plus a town full of absolute caricatures of western small town populations, including bigots, and a collection of accidental good guys. They concoct a really far out solution to the town’s plan to resist the takeover, that of appointing a black sheriff to defend the town. They expect wither the town to reject the sheriff or the sheriff to fail and be killed. They send a con artist who was about to be hung to be the new sheriff and he makes friends with a gunslinger who helps him defend the town. The plot uses cliché situations and jokes to a slapstick level almost memorable of Chaplain. The dialog, both borrowed and original is high camp, and never really purports to be serious. In fact, remarks like the gunslinger’s comment, “I must have killed more men than Cecil B. DeMille,” even goes beyond the bounds of the story. Hedley Lamarr (a take-off on Hedy Lamar) uses a line from a song (Old Black Magic), “Go do that voodoo that you do so well!” The lines borrow from all kinds of genres, including Bugs Bunny cartoons. The actors and actresses insert imitations of everyone from Mae West to Elmer Fudd. What some critics termed tired old jokes were used simply because they were old and tired, but in this movie they are funny for just that reason. One scene in the movie is almost symbolic of its whole: the scene where Clevon Little (Bart) and Gene Wilder (Jim, The Waco Kid) go to a Ku Klux Klan meeting in order to spy on their plans. The whole idea that any black man would attempt such a dangerous subterfuge is hilarious and yet makes a statement in itself about racial prejudice. Bart is simply the antithesis of the cliché “nigger”, though he knows what he is supposed to do is run. He and Jim are discovered and a rollicking chase follows in the old style of western chases with a few interesting landmarks thrown in. At one point, the movie spills out of its studio set into a neighbouring set right through the wall, which looks much like a billboard. So we get mixed into a musical and are even treated to a scene with a pie fight in the commissary. Showing the fake walls and boundaries makes another strong statement about the boundaries set for film. The language in this film could not be shown in prime time TV and got the film a PG rating. The subject matter might have been enough, but the language clinched it. There are many scenes, in fact, which by many are identified, “incorrectly regarded as goofs: When the camera is panning past the bikers who are waiting to apply for the army to take down Rock Ridge, the one on the left moves the handlebars a little too high and you can see that they arent actually connected to anything. This is not a revealing mistake, but a deliberate sight gag which showed the two "biker cowboys" who have chopper handlebars connected to not to a motorcycle, but to their holster belts, which was obviously shown.” (IMDB 2009) This scene makes fun of bikers, and the discrimination which many people feel against them. Bikers are no more all the same as black people or any other identifiable minority. This movie spares none, including women, Jews, Arabs, blacks, American Indians, Mexicans and writers and film makers. In fact, of the long list of bad guys the businessmen want to round up to send against the town, Methodists are included. It is actually surprising to me that any critic was so short-sighted as to criticise this film on the same basis as serious comedies (an interesting oxymoron), since that is a one dimensional view. The layers here of both humor and social criticism are multiple and one must see this movie several times before actually seeing them all. The fill maker uses cliché to comment upon the use of cliché, especially in western movies, and he uses extremes of bigotry and elitism to point out how ridiculous these are in our society. He puts together the common limited views of people, especially minorities, in order to point out how silly it is to judge any group as a whole. Even the bad guys may not fit the mold of bad guys. Mel Gibson took the ideas for humor to an extreme not seen before in film and may have actually started a new genre of spoof with Blazing Saddles. It is not as easy as it appears to spoof whole film genres or other groups, and it is often not understood. Starship Troopers was another victim to the critics who missed the joke, and it was badly panned. However, it is well worth seeing as another example of film spoof. Other films of note since Blazing Saddles include Soap, Once Upon a Time in the West and many more.(Seven-One International 2009) Blazing Saddles and the other films mentioned here expanded the art of cinema and used it to critique itself. This is no small task, since it is evident by the many critiques of spoof films that the critics are not all ready for this new kind of film. Comic books were seen merely as juvenile entertainment fifty years ago, and were criticised as bad for kids and possibly a danger to their ability to read. Now it is becoming high art and they are called graphic novels. It seems that much of the meaning is not in the words, but in the pictures. In Blazing Saddles, much of the meaning is also not in the words, but in how they fit with the action and situations in the film and how we, as audience, react to them. The importance of this film is that it broke new ground and yet remained highly entertaining. Its influence is two-fold, upon the audience and upon other film makers and writers. It certainly influenced films which followed, and it probably influenced many in the audience to re-examine their own ideas and prejudices of all kinds. It helped, or maybe even began, to create a whole new kind of film which pleases the more sophisticated audiences without losing the common man. It is social criticism at its best. References "Brooks, Mel - Pauline Kael." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Dedria Bryfonski. Vol. 12. Gale Cengage, 1980 Crespino, Joseph (Summer 2000). "The Strange Career of Atticus Finch". Southern Cultures (University of North Carolina Press) 6 (no. 2): 9–29. Hurst, Fannie, 1933, Imitation of Life, P.F. Collier, Hurlbutt: screenplay 1934,Stahl, John: Director, Universal Pictures, Griffin and Scott screenplay 1957, Sirk, Douglas: Director, Universal Pictures, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0025301/ , http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052918/ IMDB, 2009, Blazing Saddles, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/ Railton, Stephen, 2007, Uncle Toms Cabin in the Web of Culture conference, Harriet Beecher Stowe Center (Hartford, CT) http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/onstage/films/fihp.html , http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/interpret/exhibits/utconfilm/utconfilm.html Rose, William, 1967, Guess Who`s Coming to Dinner, Columbia Pictures, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061735/ Seven-One International, 2009, Movies Reloaded, http://www.sevenoneinternational.com/fiction/filmspoofs/content/03468/ The Pale Face, 1922, Buster Keaton Productions, IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012543/ The Pale Face, 1948, Hartmen and Tashlin, Paramount Pictures, IMDB, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0040679/ Read More