If Harpo Marx Is God, then Wayne Kostenbaum Is Our Prophet.

 

The Anatomy of Harpo Marx - Wayne Kostenbaum (2012)

 

            How amazing to come across a book dedicated to my single most favorite and adored film star, Harpo Marx, the silent genius in a family full of loquacious and anarchic extravagance, the single greatest mime in the history of soundless entertainment, the funniest of the funny, the man who, without a single word, held his own against the single-greatest wordsmith wit of the past four thousand years, his younger brother Groucho.  Harpo Marx is a being unstuck in time, belonging to the universe in perpetuity for all eternity.  Harpo does not care a whit for any of society's rules or expectations, much like the author of this work, Wayne Kostenbaum, who likewise does not care for the conventions of narrative structure or of film criticism, instead focusing monomaniacally on a deep and hyper-detailed exegesis of the experience he has watching Harpo Marx on the screen.  It makes for delirious and hilarious reading.

            Covering thirteen of the Marx Brothers films, Wayne Kostenbaum ignores the narratives of each movie, instead exploring the individual seconds of screentime given to Harpo Marx's character in each film.  Kostenbaum's language is as ornate, meaningful, and esoteric as Harpo Marx's comedy is simple, meaningless, and aimed at the popular audience.  Much of Harpo Marx's mannerisms come from the interaction he experienced with the live vaudeville audience in the early days of the Marx Brothers, something he translated directly to the silver screen at a time when talking films were so new that people had no idea what to expect, (for example, a full orchestra had to be brought to the soundstage because studio executives did not feel the audience would believe that music came out of nowhere.  The intelligence of the general public is always underestimated.  It was felt that they NEEDED to see the musicians).  In my readings about the early films, Cocoanuts specifically, I saw that the production had to be done at nighttime because the soundstage they used was not soundproofed  The traffic outside was picked up by the early microphones in use at the time.  I also read that every sheet of paper in the film was soaking wet, something that does not show on camera, but that keeps the crinkly noise of the paper from disrupting the audio recording. 

            These details do not concern the author, for he is solely and maniacally obsessed with the presence, actions, and reactions of Harpo Marx.  Experiencing the voiceless wonder, he empties his mind of any and every inference, association and remembrance brought about by Harpo and his actions.  Thoughts bleed into memory, memory bleeds into history, history bleeds into supposition, and all the while, Wayne Kostenbaum seeks to understand what is going on in Harpo's mind as he interacts with the world and people around him.  Through this, the reader learns as much about Mr. Kostenbaum as we do about Harpo. For example,

            "When I first fell in love with Harpo, it wasn't his contentment that struck me; I was moved by his hyperkinesis.  Other actors handled plot doldrums, while, in the corner, Harpo, unregarding, unspeaking, busied himself with rapid oscillations of head, eye, and hand, self-pleasuring vibrations that sometimes struck sparks in other players, though, mostly, Harpo's butterfly gyrations woke no one else to his centrality.  I, as viewer, was responsible for granting him primacy...I developed a need to convince strangers that Harpo's hyperkinetic emptiness had metaphysical dimensions."

            I love a book that uses language so well, so specifically, that I must turn to a dictionary to glean the meaning of certain words used by the author.  I must have discovered over a dozen words I needed to look up.  Kostenbaum is as much a master of the English language as Harpo Marx is a master of mime, and his words elevate Harpo's seemingly simple act into pure intellectual mindfuckery of the highest order.  A simple gesture or facial expression by Harpo leads Kostenbaum down a rabbit hole of memory, associations, and even preternatural forecasts of the impending Jewish doom coming in the lats 1930's.  The Marx Brothers contain all of existence within them.

            As a Marx Brothers fan, I have seen their first 5 films many times and laughed throughout.  Reading Kostenbaum's free-association as he obsesses over every single motion, facial tic, or slapstick joke feels a lot like my own mind and my internal dialogue as I watch the Marx Brothers.  Their first film, The Cocoanuts, came out in 1929, and in the intervening century their influence never faded.  The Marx Brothers are as much a part of American folklore as Paul Bunyan, George Washington, or Charlie Chaplin.  As a child of the early 70's, much of the TV and film I saw contained jokes and visual gags referencing Groucho, Chico, and Harpo (and even Zeppo).  These four Jewish brothers ingrained their anarchy into our collective unconscious, helping create what the world sees as "American."  Likewise, the anarchic, explorative thoughts of Wayne Kostenbaum have ingrained themselves into my psyche, helping me better understand Harpo, and increasing my appreciation for the vast amount of thought and diligent care it must have taken to create such a persona.

            Thank Mario that Kostenbaum possesses an interesting polymathic mind.  In anyone else's hands, this attempt at exegesis would fall flat, exhausting itself before completion.  The author's love for Harpo exudes from the page and into my mind.  The Marx Brothers are eternal.  Harpo is their apogee, and Wayne Kostenbaum is the gleeful apostle spreading Harpo's good deeds through his unabashed Marxian proselytizing.  We are all very fortunate to share this world with both Harpo Max and Wayne Kostenbaum. 

(This wonderful book can be purchased here: https://www.ucpress.edu/books/the-anatomy-of-harpo-marx/paper )