A Mighty Wind
During a retrospective of his work, focusing primarily on the character The Little Tramp, Sir Charles Chaplin, also known as 'Charlie Chaplin', was asked what the difference between Tragedy and Comedy was.
Chaplin, having experienced much of both in his professional and personal lives, gave the question proper consideration and reportedly replied, 'I suppose it all depends on who is asking, doesn't it?'
I thought about this reported reply recently while watching the latest from Christopher Guest, he of "This Is Spinal Tap", "Best In Show", and "Waiting For Guffman", and realized his latest work, "A Mighty Wind", might just please Chaplin, because it physically represents his once reply with regards to the question of what Comedy and Tragedy are:
It all depends on who is asking, doesn't it?
Superficially "A Mighty Wind" is a comedy. It is a funny movie about funny people doing and saying funny things, which, in turn, cause you, the movie-goer to laugh.
But just below the surface, at the edge of the frame, in the background, and between the lines often uttered by these funny people there is something else: Tragedy. Here are a group of people who believe that singing songs about frogs and dogs, bees and knees, canoes and other hoo-hoos goes to give definition and form to their lives. Here is a group of people who realized somewhere along the way on this otherwise wonderous trip that the only thing they have really done with their respective lives is to waste them. Tragic, yes. Yet, comedic. They know they have done this yet they remain upbeat, optimistic, and positive. And through these characteristics they are funny, delightful, wonderful, touching.
Christopher Guest, the genius behind "A Mighty Wind", has once more taken up the baton of the mockumentary and this time he turns his unblinking eye to folk music and those whose lives center on such things: The premise, now, of "A Mighty Wind": The beloved (aren't they just all?) folk promoter Irving Steinbloom has passed away and his son, Jonathan (Bob Balaban), wants to mount a concert in his honor and memory at Town Hall, the legendary site of so many folk performances, many of which dear ol' dad had a hand in. To do this he assembles the upbeat New Main Street Singers, the Folksmen (Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean) and the certain stars of this planned show--the estranged Mitch and Mickey (Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara).
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