The Films of Chris Farley: Or How I am Inarticulate

A poem for Chris Farley

Remember that film
you did
about the ninja.

That was awesome.

Remember that scene
with Gary Busey
He's an assassin.
Or something.

That was awesome too.

End of poem


If you read old reviews of Chris Farley's film in the NY Times, it's apparent that he was not valued for his comic gift. Stupid, stupid, stupid is pretty much the idea behind their reviews, which I can completely understand. The most immediate response to a Chris Farley movie would have to be, "It's pretty dumb." But at the same time, Farley is dead, and like Andy Kaufman (the cult/terrible Heartbeeps being the only real example of his film work), seeing him in his movies is to revisit a human being. I'm writing this with the idea that I watch a Farley flick like some people watch experimental theater. I'm less interested in the plot mechanics or subtle characterization or notions of pacing. I watch a Farley film to see Farley move, to see him fall, to see his spastic frame lumber and explode, and for his dead-pan delivery. And I would never want to see any of this in the ciniplex, because Farley is really a tv actor. His over-the-top antics works well on the small screen, because he dominates the space.

A few months ago I revisited some documents that I almost wished were destroyed. They are recordings of musical plays I did in junior high; the real angle is that I did these musicals at my church. They are youth group church plays, terribly written, and some of the most horrid music you will every hear. The only good part is the dancing, which has us doing a kind of vamped-up square dance with random hand gestures. Anyway, in one of these plays, I had a part as a chunky loser who eats too much but loves god. And I totally mimicked Farley, exploding at random like I lived in a van down by the river. And I realized that Farley was an iconic means of communication for me. I wanted to convey to the audience, in my limited acting vocab, that this is who the part really should be played by. So, in a sense, Farley wasn't merely a comic; he was a medium of expression. A way to connect.

There's something else though. There are emotions, generic things like laughter, and sadness, and so on. But then there's these ideas I can't say, and something in Farley, besides, "Oh year, hilarious." It's like some form of stupidity that is so good, and better than a lot of the intellectual pretensions and hypocrisies and pure cynicism that we have to face.

Farley never really made a good film, but I argue like Pauline Kael: this is trash not meant to be art, and sometimes that the greatest relief of all.