1POPULAR CINEMA

under pressure and looks downward or sideways in embarrassment. The direction
of his gaze requires constant adjustment; his swiftness and agility are
a defensive physical response to a perceived lack of orientation and control.
The placement and movement of the actor’s body within the miseen-scène
add to this overall impression of painful self-awareness. Rühmann
compensates for his short stature with increased physical activity. In difficult
situations, he utilizes the entire repertoire from clutched hands, raised
shoulders, twisted arms to curved spine, caved-in chest, and lowered head.
Of course, any detailed analysis of his screen persona must also extend to
hairstyles, clothes, and accessories, as well as the possessions with which he
surrounds himself. These markers of personality become especially pronounced
in situations that bring out his most fundamental problem, the desire
for self-actualization and the impossibility of its realization. These situations
often arise as a result of the binge drinking that has already been
discussed within the representational strategies of white-collar comedy but
now also calls for a more detailed consideration of the presentational modes
associated with comic performance styles.
From the beginning of cinema, excessive drinking has been one of the
standards in the comic repertory. Given its association with loss of control,
drunkenness allows for the representation of transgressive and disruptive
forms of behavior: challenging institutional authority, rejecting social convention,
violating public decorum, overcoming sexual inhibitions, and, most
important in the case of Rühmann, regressing to a state of blissful irresponsibility.
More specifically, the various stages of inebriation and the increasing
sense of physical and psychological impairment give the comic actor
a perfect opportunity to show off his physical swiftness and dexterity. As
a departure from naturalistic acting, drunken scenes legitimate a return to
the expressive registers of slapstick and pantomime. The privileging of interiority
in classical screen acting—that is, when actions are psychologically
motivated—is thus overlaid by an older, highly externalized acting tradition
based on mechanical gestures and exaggerated movements.
In the Rühmann comedies, alcohol is frequently introduced in moments
when a solution can be achieved only through temporary amnesia in the
main protagonist. Following in the tradition of the carnivalesque, the altered
state bears witness to the binary opposition of public vs. private, latent
vs. manifest, hidden vs. concealed, and real vs. imagined that constitutes
his screen persona, from the tacit acceptance of self-control as a condition
of social harmony to the sentimental belief in childishness as the true es-
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