Hindsight

Classic kids, or 100 films the kids in your life have to see by 13 years old or else?

Day 45:  Duck Soup (1933)
Kids 10-13

The last Marx Brothers picture produced by Paramount films.  This is a film that can be watched on several levels.  Kids will enjoy the slapstick, the absurd behavior of adults, while the rest of us (so called grown-ups) can see the layers of satire of government red tape and hierarchy.  In 1990 the United States Library of Congress deemed Duck soup as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" and chose it for National Film Registry preservation.  

Watch for the famous Mirror scene, itself adapted from an earlier Charlie Chaplin film.  The final scene is worthy of discussion.  In this last production number while the Marx brothers ridicule war they do so in the conventions of a minstrel show.  When the film was transferred to DVD, there was consideration of deletion of this scene, because of its racist connotation; however,  it seems a good chance to discuss with children the history of African American representations and references within Hollywood.  This last scene is used toward the end of Woody Allen's film Hannah and her Sisters.  The scene provokes his character to rethink his life, remembering to find the absurdity in most things human.  Try to follow all the costume changes Groucho's character Firefly does, quite impressive and amusing.  

Media Literacy:  How can you tell this film was produced in the early 1930s?  What is the role of race within the film?  What is the role of gender and class?  Is there a moral to the story?

Themes:  Absurdity, War, Satire