The Tragic and the Comic

Your plane has just taken off for Europe when a flock of geese that crosses its path gets sucked into an engine, causing the crew to dump a full tank of jet fuel and make an emergency landing, CNN cameramen frantically waiting for you at the gate. By the time you land in Europe a full day late, your spouses are at each other's throats and everything has gone down the creek. Comedy or tragedy? Tragedy for the geese, black comedy for the spouses?

Your plane takes off and moments later, the city you're to land at undergoes a massive electrical blackout along with much of the region. The person you're to meet has to drive five hours to pick you up so you can make new emergency plans to get to your next venue, a once-in-a-lifetime event. The only thing preventing complete disaster is a cellphone with a dying battery. Black comedy, bad luck or an epic obstacle to overcome like Greek heroes?

Your plane takes off after the wedding and, heading for Europe on a honeymoon, you learn that a Soviet nuclear reactor is in melt down condition, endangering all of Europe. Tragedy for the dead and dying, black comedy for the honeymooners?

If you haven't seen Melinda and Melinda (2004), Woody Allen's most recent film before the widely acclaimed Match Point (2005/06), it posits the ancient question, is life better seen as a tragedy or as a comedy? I think, in the end, you see it as a mix of both, at least if you can keep a sense of humor in spite of the horrible and the miserable. I absolutely enjoyed this movie (and Match Point, which goes on to explore the role of luck in life), especially because of the perfectly cast 5'6" Austalian actor Radha Mitchell (11/12/73) in the lead role. She exudes the right combination of smart, attractive, and wounded Woody Allen woman to carry the dual story, intertwining tragic-comic tales with her as the only common chracter. Mitchell is --along with the 5'7" Chloe Sevigny (11/18/74), another terrific actor in the film -- definitely on the hot list of contemporary acting talent. Mitchell is also great in High Art (1998) and presently at theaters in the current spookathan Silent Hill.

Back in high school, I had an intriguing history teacher named Ms. Ruth Cunningham part of the time and Dr. Ruth Bishop by the time of graduation. She always said impressive things way off the curriculum guide. When a kid tipped his desk completely over and the rest of the class cracked up, for instance, she launched into a soliloquy about the fine line between tragedy and comedy. Comedy, she said, was merely tragedy seen from a distance, when the audience had nothing emotionally invested in what happened. In a class about Mao's China, she spoke of Greek playwrights and poets. In another class about the British Empire, she spoke about the surreality of time, space and context, recalling the day she stood at her father's funeral in rural South Carolina when some hayseeds drove by hooting about some useless thing, and her flipping them the finger. Your day will come, she'd thought then, cursing them like a banshee.

Dr. Bishop, Woody Allen and the ancient Greeks have all taught me something along the way -- entertaining but true lessons in how to see the world. And I thank them all.

Que sera, sera!