Applause for the Waco Kid, aka Gene Wilder (1933-2016)

My local Blockbuster prominently displayed this image of the late Gene Wilder, back when Blockbuster was still a thing.

Near the end of this past August, 2016 once again proved how dangerous a year it is to be an icon of popular culture when it claimed the life of the great actor Gene Wilder. Wilder died at age 83, leaving behind an impressive body of work. Though I am a fan of some of his other work (such as 1979's fun comedic Western The Frisco Kid, in which Wilder stars as a Polish rabbi sent to America and teams up with a post-Star Wars Harrison Ford), it is most likely, however, that he'll be remembered for four films: The Producers (1968), Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein (both 1974).

Others have honored his memory much better than I am capable. Mel Brooks, who directed Wilder in The Producers, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein (Wilder had the idea for Young Frankenstein on the set of Blazing Saddles; he and Brooks wrote the screenplay together) had a heartfelt recollection of his time with Gene Wilder not long after Wilder's passing. Wilder himself gave a wonderful career retrospective on NPR 2005. John Podhoretz wondered why he never became the bigger star he deserved to be.

Wilder in Young Frankenstein

And the week after Wilder died, Warner Bros. and AMC theaters gave their own tribute in the form of a  post-celebrity-death cash-grab of which I wholly approve: They re-released Blazing Saddles into theaters for the weekend. I jumped at the opportunity to see one of my favorite comedies on the big screen, uncensored, from start-to-finish. This was a wise move. Though I've seen Blazing Saddles, many times, it is one of those movies (like, say, Airplane) so packed with jokes that you notice something new, or appreciate something old in a new way, almost every time you see it. For one, despite being a thoroughgoing parody of Westerns - once almost as popular in Hollywood as superhero movies are today - it has enough respect for the form and its conventions to - among other things - look beautiful on a big screen. In an increasingly politically-correct age, moreover, it was quite something to see a movie comfortable not just dealing with racism, but deriving humor from it, yet in a back-handedly tasteful way. It was also fun to watch in a full (!) theater with obvious fans of of the movie. Finally, for sheer meta pleasure, I don't think anything beats seeing the scene in which Hedley Lamarr settles down in a movie theater to watch the end of Blazing Saddles while I myself was in a movie theater watching the end of Blazing Saddles. It's been a while since I had that much meta in my life. 

The best part of the movie, of course, is the proto-buddy-cop friendship between Cleavon Little's Sheriff Bart and Gene Wilder's Waco Kid/Jim. Little plays Bart straight but stops just short of bringing him to a fault, and Wilder's Waco Kid is both convincingly washed-up and a credibly laconic deadshot when he needs to be. The two of them together have enough comedic chemistry to have powered a movie all on their own, but Blazing Saddles throws in one of cinema's most important fart jokes, Harvey Korman's hilariously narcissistic Hedley Lamarr, a well-meaning but mostly incompetent henchman in Slim Pickens, Mel Brooks' imbecilic governor, a horse getting punched in the face, and so many other hilarious characters and moments that it's impossible to list them all here.

Gene Wilder and Cleavon Little, having a blast in Blazing Saddles

Instead, I want to use Wilder's performance in Blazing Saddles to draw out some of his greater qualities as an actor. Probably foremost among these is what Todd VanDerWerff called his "comedic generosity." While a star in his own right, Wilder did not hog the screen; he was always more than happy to let co-stars shine and get the punchline, as he does in Blazing Saddles in spades. Here's a great example:



Less evident in Blazing Saddles, but much, much more prominent in his roles in Young Frankenstein and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, was Wilder's talent for playing the man just barely keeping it all together. Yes, he could convey a quiet exterior, but he could easily hint at - and, without much prompting, ferociously display - a wellspring of hidden emotions and tensions. He could, moreover, convincingly alternate between both, often within the same scene, without seeming like a ham or a scenery-chewer. Here's probably the best example of that:



Finally, Wilder was perhaps the definitive master of the comedic pause. In the wrong hands, the comedic pause can undercut the humor of a moment meant to be funny, or draw out a joke to the point where it no longer amuses. But Wilder knew exactly how to make his pauses just as long as they needed to be; whether to provide the momentary hesitation that mirrors how the audience feels, or to highlight the awkwardness of whatever situation in which he found himself. The comedic pause is an art; Gene Wilder was its Michelangelo. Here's proof:

 
Gene Wilder's performances will live on for many years to come; his starring role in Willy Wonka alone seems already to have introduced him to an entire new generation of fans. Yet his passing reminds us ever more of 2016's stark question: What will popular culture look like after all of the icons of the Baby Boomer era pass away? Someday, we will have to find out. But, in the meantime, how about a little applause for the Waco Kid: