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Clowns occupy a madcap world defined by the grotesque, the absurd and the downright stupid. Their whole lives are devoted to making people laugh, but today even the greats can struggle to do that. So what keeps them going in a world that seems to be leaving them behind? With some of the best performances you'll have ever seen, this fascinatingly entertaining documentary explores the enigmatic entity that is the clown, both on and off the stage. "It's true that for my whole life I hated clowns", says Buffo. Buffo is clad in an oversized gown that is a patchwork of colours. His face is covered in makeup and a red wig completes the picture. Clapping and dancing and smashing himself in the face with a pie, he is a caricature. "I hated two things: they were grotesque and they weren't funny". As he strips off the costume to reveal a black suit underneath, his movements become delicate and precise; the opposite of the clown's lumberings. Buffo has found comedy in inverting the stereotype he always hated.
An integral part of clowning is the relationship with the audience."You have to listen to the audience", says Gaulier. But it's not always easy and Buffo comes well-prepared for a difficult crowd."You have three possibilities: you start improvising, you just sit there or you get up and leave". Gaulier is a little more cunning and sees the opportunities for humour in failure. "When it's a flop you have to save the show, so you have another timing: when you don't understand why nobody laughs, then everybody laughs".
With the famous Colombaioni taking the clown from the circus to the stage and finally making the transition to television, that dynamic has been put to the test. They insist that,"clowns will find any type of medium and adapt; they fit in everywhere". But there is still sadness from most about losing that intimacy with the audience. "Emotions are something you can only bring out in a live performance".
Despite the threat that changes in the world of entertainment have presented to his survival, the clown has retained the same lawless spirit."The clown is sort of chaos, he is an anarchic character". This madman, buffoon and imbecile will do anything for a laugh: "You can't trust him". As Faemino the clown points out, if a clown was presented with two buttons, one that saved the world and one that destroyed it, he would press 'destroy' out of sheer mischief. So will these unpredictable characters bring clowning back to the centre stage? Only if it's funny.
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| Making the film |
New Shoes: Today’s Clowns in Europe is a documentary about Clowns of the turn of the century, from Carlo Colombaioni up to the present. We wanted to offer a vision of the contemporary clown, from the point of view of the most renowned figures of the genre, who show us how they think and act onstage and off. Through the play of two young clowns, we discover how these actors and the clowns they incarnate face the different aspects of life. |
| The Producers |
After obtaining a degree in Dramatic Art from the Escuela de Actores de Canarias, he completed his studies at the Ecole Phillipe Gaulier and with intensive courses in theatre, playwriting and clown with masters such as Carlo Colombaioni, Jango Edwards and Jose Luis Alonso de Santos, amongst others. He is the Artistic director of the annual International Clownbaret Festival, which he started in 2004 in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. As a clown, he performed with the Circo Raluy on its European Tour through Luxembourg, Norway and Belguim during 2003 season. He is a member of the Fools Militia, a militia of clowns founded and directed by Jango Edwards and Peter Ercolano for the Barcelona Forum of 2004, with which troupe he has also performed in several international festivals. From 2005 through 2008, assistant to the director of one of the most popular comic television shows in the Canary Islands, balancing this with his own theatre company Clownbaret, for which he is playwright, actor and director.
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