Let's Get Physical

摘要

So why are millions of people laughing at jim Carrey, to the consternation of some critics who see him as the embodiment of that worrisome buzz phrase, the dumbing ot America? Maybe it's because we need some good, honest dumbing, since all the smart types—pols, pundits, professors—seem to have canceled each other out in a moral and cultural stalemate. But unseriously, folks, this guy is funny. He's brought comedy back to its, yes, dumb roots, an explosion of pure energy that's somehow anarchic and innocent, a fusion of vulgarity and grace. Carrey is a one-man synthesis of movie comedy: he mixes the physicality of the silent comics, the wisecrackery of screwball comedy and the warp-speed extravagance of the classic cartoons. Doesn't this make him the greatest comic of all time, a mutation of Buster Keaton, Richard Pryor and Bugs Bunny? No, it just makes him three times as crazy as any other comic, including Steve Martin and Robin Williams. The craziness lies in Carrey's sheer esthetic impudence: anything goes, and goes fast.