’s melancholy bumbler, the Little Tramp. His sad looks and elastic gestures would become a cliché, aped by every street performer who has wrestled with the wind or opened an imaginary door.
In fact Marceau was a complex artist, scarred by adolescent upheaval. He was born Marcel Mangel, into a Jewish family in Strasbourg, and as a child revelled in drawing and gymnastics. In 1939, ahead of the invasion by Nazi Germany, his home town was evacuated. At the urging of a cousin he joined the, and his enthusiasms proved invaluable: he altered the documents of Jewish children and posed as a Boy Scout to smuggle others into Spain and Switzerland.
Marceau’s subject matter ranged widely: pride, solitude, sin and the pathos of old age, as well as adaptations of Nikolai Gogol, Franz Kafka and Voltaire. When he enacted the Earth’s creation his fingers became birds and fish. In a piece called “The Tribunal” he played defendant, jury, judge and executioner. His work for the big screen never quite captured the lyrical expressiveness of his stage act.
Offstage, Marceau was loquacious and in demand as a chat-show raconteur. On it he was a model of lithe discipline and an inspiration to other theatre practitioners, showing how an art form that often favours text and talk could profit from the eloquence of the body. Reflecting on the power of his chosen medium, he wondered: “Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?”
I watched Marceau perform on stage in Brisbane, Australia in the 1970s. It kindled my lifelong fascinating with mime and theatre. I loved it.
Charlie Chaplin also had that talent down pat before talkies...
Sophie as well… (yeah I know, not related, but still) Like it or not, this is a milestone in Cinema’s History.
Ha! Everyone hates mimes. But they always feel that they should never actually say it.
👍🏻🆒
Underappreciated? A lively disliked, more like 🤡
Huge star in France and worldwide
EnriqueKrauze He was a super star!
Long way of saying “actors should shut up more”
Clowns Mimes
Silence speaks volumes