Still Burning After All These Years: Mel Brooks at 100 | film

MThe story of L. Brooks is the story of American comedy, Jews, and Jewish-American comedy. He was born on the kitchen table of a Brooklyn tenement a century ago, the same month that Marilyn Monroe entered her home on the opposite coast. Brooks is the son of European immigrants, and was raised by his mother after his father died when Melvin was just two years old. He was a small, sickly child and the youngest of four brothers, perhaps an explanation for an almost pathological desire for attention. In the words of his colleague Larry Gilbert: “Mel thought that when the doctor who delivered him slapped him on the butt, it was an applause, and he hasn’t stopped performing since.”

In his youth, Brooks’ favorite way to make noise was by playing the drums and he learned the instrument from Buddy Rich. Neither of them could have known at the time that they would go on to have seismic impacts on the two great American art forms: comedy and jazz. This young man, like many others, was boycotted by Adolf Hitler. Teenager Brooks joined the army and participated in the Battle of the Bulge. If one is looking to understand the artist’s courage or absolute commitment to mocking the Nazis for the rest of his days, those war years provide an adequate explanation. It may also explain his assertion that “comedy is the opposite of death.”

Upon his return home, Brooks took tentative steps into the world of show business by drumming at Borscht Belt spas in the Catskills to audiences composed almost exclusively of fellow Jews. When the regular comedian was sick, he filled in and discovered the unique joy of getting laughs from the audience. It wasn’t long before he was recruited to write for Your Show of Shows, the popular Sid Caesar show generally regarded as having assembled the greatest comedy writing team in television history. It was in this series that Brooks met Carl Reiner and they formed a personal and professional relationship that lasted until the latter’s death in 2020 at the age of 98.

The pair began improvising comedies to entertain friends, and during one of them, Reiner asked what it was like to be present at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. And thus a 2,000-year-old man was born, perhaps the greatest introduction to a recurring comic character. These routines appeared on five albums recorded between 1960 and 1997, but their performances began in the 1950s, only a few years after the end of World War II. Brooks’s sense of humor and accent for the character were unabashedly Jewish, so at the very historical moment one might expect him to keep such a thing well hidden. The only real worry about the double act was that non-Jews would be confused – but those fears were dispelled when Cary told Grant Brooks that he had played the record at Buckingham Palace to please the Queen Mother. In Brooks’ words: “If it’s the biggest shiksa In the world likes it, we are free at home.

If the 2,000-year-old man was a menace bordering on war, then Brooks’s first feature film, The Producers, was positively menacing. It might be tempting to suggest a comedic premise like the aforementioned character being a once-in-a-lifetime one, but Brooks’ life is no ordinary one, and he followed it up with a film about two Broadway producers who discover they can make more money by floundering than by succeeding, eventually settling on Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp with Adolf and Eva at Berchtesgaden. Larry David, who built an entire season of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as a tribute to the producers, He called it “perhaps the greatest comedy introduction anyone has ever dreamed of.” The film was released in 1967, and some felt that the atrocities were fresh in the memory. “I was in World War II,” one gambler chided Brooks. Reply? “Neither did I. I didn’t see you there.”

Brooks’ second effort, The Twelve Chairs, is perhaps the most underrated film in his oeuvre and shows a love of Russian literature that began when his colleague Mel Tolkien loaned him Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls during his Show Your Own years. But his next two films, Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein, ensured that 1974 was a breakout year for Brooks, ushering in the golden age of parody films. It is noteworthy that these masterpieces became more popular than the films they imitated: the former were the highest-grossing Westerns in history until Dances With Wolves in 1990.

Brooks continued to make parodies into the 1980s and 1990s with undeniable diminishing returns. However, at times over the past half-century, it has seemed as if his real target was simply Mel Brooks. This affable character has never stopped breaking the fourth wall and embracing the chaos, whether being feted by Barack Obama and pretending to lower his pants, wearing a prosthetic 11th finger while adding his handprint to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or having the audacity to point out the craziness of BBC’s The One Show in his 90s. The latest incident saw the presenters trying to transition from lighthearted chat to a story about a woman trying to find her long-lost father. “What a crazy show,” Brooks said.

He produced The Elephant Man, chose David Lynch as director and removed his name from the credits for fear that anyone would assume this was a comedy. When executives asked for changes, Brooks responded: “We are engaged in a commercial venture. We have shown the film on your behalf, to update you regarding the status of this venture. Do not misunderstand this as our request for the input of angry primitives.” One can’t blame him for trusting his instincts: Brooks is one of only 22 people in history to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. Not bad for a guy synonymous with fart jokes.

With Brooks, it all feels like a death instinct and defiance emerging from a traumatized young man. A friend of mine once met a taxi driver who was bragging about having his hero in the back of his car on his way to a speech in London. When Brooks discovered that this taxi driver had a crush on him, he proceeded to deliver the entire speech to an audience of precisely one person. Has any character ever been so resolutely committed to spreading joy and making people laugh?

He is the son of immigrants who fought the Nazis and ultimately prevailed in every area of ​​business. It’s the American dream turned into flesh. Brooks may not live to be 2,000 years old, but 100 years seemed equally implausible when he served in the 78th Infantry Division. When asked the secret to a long life after a screening of Blazing Saddles I attended in London years ago, this American entertainment icon offered some sage advice that he clearly lived by: “Don’t die.”