A few weeks back, we did a round-up of movie mobsters and their odd culinary leanings. In the spirit of the high emotions and decade-sweeping montages that characterize the Oscars, we decided to put together a retrospective of funny-sad food.
Maybe it all just goes back to that common childhood experience of watching a scoop of ice cream melt and fall from the cone.
There’s something about the anticipation and loss, and the absurd but necessary reliance on routine during hard times that gives these scenes their gentle power. And the fact that it’s all just plain funny makes everything somehow sadder.
Charlie Chaplin in The Gold Rush (1925). This is a classic. The Little Tramp dines on an old boot, which he sets on a plate and meticulously carves with a knife and fork. (The leather was actually licorice.)
Woody Allen’s Take the Money and Run (1969). In this mockumentary, fugitive from justice, Virgil Starkwell (Allen, above), unfolds a single slice of bologna from his wallet and shares it with his wife. Strangely heartbreaking.
Stripes (1981). Coming home with a pizza and his girlfriend’s dry cleaning after a hard day's work, John Winger (Bill Murray) sees the repo man driving away with his car. In the ensuing struggle, the pie is lost. Mozzarella with tire marks has never been more poignant.
Betty Blue (France, 1986). In a show of solidarity with his mentally ill girlfriend, Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) dumps a bowl of stew over his head.
Anyone else?
- Nora
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
I like the dancing potatoes from Benny & Joon
totally cute, and yet utterly melancholy
Ann, I believe it's a couple of bread rolls, not potatoes - and that scene was lifted from a Chaplin movie anyway. :)
Funny this came up. We just watched Take the Money and Run and thought it was very much like Chaplin.
Husband and kids just watched Matchstick Men and Husband described a scene of the dad making spaghetti that the daughtr didn't like and they ordered pizza. I said it didn't seem sad, just the typical experience of trying to cook for kids. It occured here just last night when my son rushed to the sink to spit out the gummy rice noodles I made with shrimp curry. Admittedly not one of my better efforts. Curry should not be done in a hurry.
I just tought of a couple...
TAMPOPO: as they cry, a man and his family eat the last stir-fry mom made before dying in the kitchen
SIDEWAYS: at the end, when the main charactere drinks his good bottle of wine using a paper cup while eating at a burger joint
In "The Jerk" there's the birthday party scene near the beginning. After Navin runs crying from the table, his brother comes to console him and has brought him his dinner - a tuna sandwich, a Tab and a couple of Twinkies. The hilarious and strangely poignant part is when Taj says "I wrapped your sandwich in cellophane, just like you like it." I don't know why that's so sad, but it just is. The same goes for the thermos gag that runs through the movie.
There's a lot of this in the classic Warner Bros. cartoons, particularly Sylvester, with his garbage-can-lid-platter of fish bones. Isn't there a scene in one of them where a bunch of cats slice up a single baked bean as though it were a roast?