Comedy mutations: a dialogue

Abstract

Xinyu Dong (XD): Jonathan, you and I are both cinephiles. Much of our conversation over the years has been about our favorite films and directors, and we nudge each other to watch or re-watch new releases and rediscovered classics. Now that we’re co-editing this special issue on comedy, I wonder, what are some of the most amusing moments for you in the Chinese-language films that you’ve seen? I ask about these cinephiliac moments because when a comic scene works, it tends to be highly memorable. And often what we find amusing can tell us a lot about the film as a whole: how it plays with comic conventions, how it addresses its audience, how it ages over time. Jonathan Rosenbaum (JR): I was especially amused by the point-of-view shots from inside an ATM in Peter Chan’s 1996 Comrades: Almost a Love Story (a particular favorite of mine), because of the whole idea of what we look like from the vantage point of our money – or, more specifically, what Maggie Cheung and Leon Lai, both mainlanders who meet one another in Hong Kong and try to ‘make it’ there, look like to the ups and downs of their cash balances that epitomize much of their struggle. XD: Interesting that you picked this sweet little running gag in an unassuming romantic comedy. I say ‘unassuming’ because not only rom-com is always knowingly light, but this film makes unpretentiousness its virtue. Comrade, this is almost a love story, but wait a minute, let me check my ATM... ATM is the tragicomedy here. No wonder the film has aged so well. It’s a classic now. I also recall a favorite moment in there, when Leon Lai restlessly switches between several long lines at the local McDonald’s and promptly deposits himself at the counter when Maggie Cheung starts a new line. A well-choreographed ‘meet-cute’. But it also reminds me of Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp at the employment office in A Dog’s Life (1918) – whereas the Tramp always loses to his more alert (or muscular) fellow tramps, Leon Lai has better luck as a mainlander in Hong Kong, better trained to be opportunistic with long lines. Of course, Peter Chan didn’t have to see Chaplin to come up with this gag, even though he might have while studying at the UCLA film school. He has an eye for comic situations found on the street, and the gag works because it taps into our everyday experience. Like your ATM example, this one keeps me amused when I wait in long lines... With all these gags found on the street, so to speak, Chan keeps the first part of Comrade lighthearted and funny, a ‘migrant comedy’ in the tradition of the ‘rube comedies’ in early cinema.