The Last Laugh
- Sunday, Sep 29, 2024, 6:00pm
100th anniversary!
One of the crowning achievements of the German expressionist movement, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s THE LAST LAUGH (Der letzte Mann) stars Emil Jannings as an aging doorman whose happiness crumbles when he is relieved of the duties and uniform which had for years been the foundation of his happiness and pride. Through Jannings’s colossal performance, THE LAST LAUGH becomes more than the plight of a single doorman, but a mournful dramatization of the frustration and anguish of the universal working class.
Presented in celebration of National Silent Movie Day and part of our 20th Anniversary Celebration Series!
“[A] highly artistic film masterpiece.” Mordaunt Hall, The New York Times
“One of the most famous of silent films, and one of the most truly silent, because it does not even use printed intertitles. Silent directors were proud of their ability to tell a story through pantomime and the language of the camera, but no one before Murnau had ever entirely done away with all written words on the screen (except for one sardonic comment [towards the end]). He tells his story through shots, angles, moves, facial expressions and easily read visual cues.” Roger Ebert