In his post, Dan Gribbin wrote: >...humor may gain something in the translation from >culture to culture. Do any other examples come to mind? Well, Jacques Derrida is apparently more widely read in the US than in France, but I digress. A few points anent Le Roi du Crazy, the fabulous Monsieur Lewis. The French affection for Jerry's film work (they never, of course, saw the Martin and Lewis Colgate Comedy Hours or, until much later, the MDA Telethon or his live touring act) is implicated in nascent auteurism and especially in French affection for Frank Tashlin, who directed two of the last three Martin and Lewis films and a passel of Jerry's solo projects between 1957 and 1963. When Jerry himself began directing in 1960, there was a clear evolution from Tashlin's work to his and he built an audience out of both his fans and his mentor's. It's worth mentioning that even the films Jerry did with Dean had always done remarkably well in France (some were renamed in French with titles specifically mentioning Jerry), but, then, they did remarkably well in most countries, especially, of course, the US. Still, only in France, where a director-based criticism was widely practiced and (perhaps more importantly) *read* did Jerry begin receiving medals for his work in the mid-'60s. Add to this the decidedly droll tendency of French audiences to seek in an American icon signs of infantilism, sexual immaturity, materialistic vulgarity and, for want of a better term, lack of social breeding, (if not hebraic touches) and you get a pretty good idea of the not-so-subtly wicked glee with which Jerry's French audience embraced him at a time when his american audience was waning. Perhaps there is more of a taste for physical comedy in France: Chaplin, Keaton and, of course, Tati were revered there more consistently and widely than they were in the US; perhaps (and this is always Jerry's own explanation) comedy just translates well (he always protests that he's more beloved in Sweden and Portugal and such than France); perhaps there's a perverse pleasure taken in France upon discovering bits of American culture (Poe, hot jazz, noir fiction) that Americans don't appreciate. It probably all plays a part. One other thing: Jerry specifically encouraged his French reputation by befriending several key taste-makers, most notably the critic Robert Benayoun, who visited Jerry's Bel Air home, and the comedian Pierre Etaix, with whom Jerry performed on French TV and at the Olympia theater. At any rate, I don't anticipate the same effect trickling down to "Bean" in anything like the same way. The French love of and admiration for Jerry Lewis is a complex phenomenon partaking of the two cultures' mutual mistrust, jealousy, and fascination, as well as the specific historical circumstances which held in Hollywood and Paris in the late '50s. "Bean" made money in France less because of some socio-aesthetic dynamic, I suspect, than the fact that so few contemporary comedies made in English are translatable, either culturally or linguistically: Pity the poor francophones trying to whip up spiffy subtitles for, oh, "Nothing to Lose," "Trial and Error," or "My Best Friend's Wedding." "Bean," in this company, takes on the dimension of Aristophenes...and I didn't even *like* it... Shawn Levy PS: I hate to do this, but I've got to mention that much of the above is touched on (at great, exhausting length) in my Lewis biography ("King of Comedy: The Life and Art of Jerry Lewis"), now in paperback from St. Martin's. Look for the chapter entitled "Frogs Legs and Pratfalls." ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]