Cinema

(de voertaal van deze avond is Engels).

Jeffrey's Underground Cinema has been showing neglected and forgotten films for the last decade. This night:  

DUCK SOUP  1933
Directed by Leo McCarey
63 minutes
In English

As Hollywood was busy building stereotypes that they would endlessly reproduce as role models for our society, the Marx brothers (Chico, Harpo, and Groucho) were dismantling those stereotypes… exposing them as jokes… especially aimed at those in power. In this Marx Brothers flick we are thrown into the crazy world of politics today—where there are countless laws and regulations for those at the bottom of society, but those at the top can do whatever they want and get off scot-free. And of course, when people live with such privilege and are totally disconnected from those at the bottom, they begin hallucinating their own world without any sense of reality anymore. 

Many consider this to be the best of the Marx brothers projects, made in the early period when they were more wild, rambunctious and unpredictable. The story is a bit scattered-brained but it involves Groucho Marx, who through a twist of fate becomes the president of a bankrupt country called Freedonia. Once put into a position of power Groucho becomes a cocky dictator-scoundrel who is totally unpredictable and makes new laws at a whim. How the politics are carried out is hilarious, but the parallels to things happening today are so acute that it’s even a bit painful!

And once again, the reason why I am showing this at the Marionette Theatre is because the physical skills that the three Marx Brothers reach are a pure art form, just like the art of puppetry.

The Marx brothers remain unique still after 90 years… their madness reached such a high-pitched surreal level, and their one-liners packed a punch. Indeed after you have seen one of their flicks you feel like you have been in a boxing match. The quality is zany, even giddy, but their real contribution is their wild imagination. The frantic speed is almost non-stop, with little breaks to go back to the narrative, and to let you catch your breath.  

With a short introduction by Jeffrey Babcock

20:30 (doors and bar open at 20:00)
Free entrance / no reservations
We advise you to come early: max. 70 people /
no admittance after 20.30