“Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die” might be one of the best ethos for a comedian, game to do anything for a laugh. That’s especially true for the one-of-a-kind writer, producer, director, actor and EGOT recipient Mel Brooks, whose brand of broad slapstick mines the depth of human despair and manages to find the comedy inherent in bleakness. Content to make fun of anything and everything, Brooks’ films run the gamut of witty, irreverent and vulgar. If there’s a common trait to any of the man’s films, it’s his pure commitment to the laugh; Brooks will tear down the fabric of the worlds his films occupy for a single chuckle. The lack of rules are the rules. And it’s that anarchic spirit that make his filmography so eminently watchable.
