The Man Who Laughs

Appeals to viewers drawn to expressionist melodrama, tragic romance, grotesque imagery, and silent cinema’s heightened emotional performances.

Tone

bleak, eerie, romantic

Payoff

heartbreak, catharsis

Pacing

steady

Intensity

intense

Structure

linear

Themes

tyranny, class inequality, disfigurement, identity, forbidden love

Setting

late seventeenth century, royal courts and traveling carnival grounds