The Last Laugh

There is exactly one intertitle in this film, and it arrives at its most contested moment. Murnau tells the whole story through Emil Jannings's face and the movement of the camera. Cinematographer Karl Freund put the camera in a wheelchair, mounted it on a bicycle, hung it from a swing and strapped it to his own chest. The method became known as the unchained camera, and is generally treated as the beginning of camera movement as a means of narration. An ageing doorman at a grand hotel holds all his standing in his uniform; his neighbourhood's view of him rests on that coat. When age gets him demoted to lavatory attendant and the uniform is taken away, he loses everything. The film leaves him at the bottom, and then the single intertitle appears and the studio-imposed happy ending begins: a wealthy guest has died at the hotel and left him a fortune. He is suddenly rich and feasts in the dining room with the night watchman. The ending is not consolation; it mocks forced optimism itself. Who it is for: viewers who want to see the narrative power of silent cinema and the birth of camera movement. Who it is not for: impatient viewers. It is slow and built entirely on the humiliation of one man.