Charlie Chaplin: C/D

i've never seen a fatty arbuckle flick, though - which ones are worth checking out?

keaton (but its still really, in a lot of ways, about pure phsicality (sp) and hes so sad too)
mabel normand (the funniest of the sennet workers, and she directed too)
harold lloyd
laurel and hardy
arbuckle (though i still dont find fattie jokes funny)

i find myself more easily moved to tears by chaplin then laughter)

i think the ending of 'city lights' is still pretty moving. i knew what it was before i saw it and i still kinda cried!

They never show Chaplin shorts on television anymore but I used to love him when I was a nipper

If his films don't work on you, fine, but I get irritated when people evaluate him on the same plane as other comics/filmmakers. HE ORIGINATED STUFF.

The reason the earlier Mack Sennett stuff tends to play better to modern audiences is that he hadn't developed the pathetic elements so much in the early stuff. When he stumbled onto that formula, it was like he'd struck oil. His audience lapped it up and begged for more. We don't.

i don't really fully understand the reverance that several generations of critics and filmmakers for chaplin, though. he was like a god to them, from renoir to bresson to (name famous filmmaker here). i mean, yeah, i've read what they had to say about chaplin so i appreciate the influence intellectually, but still his role as "*the* genius of the cinema" (a role he occupied until the 1960s or so?) is somewhat mystifying to me.

arbuckle was a fucking genius and most of his jokes aren't really fat jokes (there are a lot of dumb jokes too! and the fat jokes are usually pretty funny!)

And it's not really a matter of which "movies" you like, remember. All Chaplin movies are of a piece, just as all WC Fields movies are of a piece (always hating the kids, always drunk, ya know), and the Marx Borthers (always bilking the rich woman out of her fortune, always with the music numbers, ya know), etc. His physical comedy seems a little too WHOOPS! for me -- maybe it's that fast speed he liked because it made things "funnier" -- it's not funnier. It's more precious, that's all.

Precious! OMG that's the word. Chaplin is so fuckin' precious. Put him next to Groucho, and he'd be blown out of the room like a leaf in the breeze by the first snide barb.

kenan have you seen "the immigrant"? you should.

i thought it was the unfunny load of arse when i was 17

this is the second time youve attacked me though, Amatuer(ist) and i am not sure its warranted...and one of the times i wasnt even on the fucking thread--you and a few others just decided to take swings, i didnt know what i did to deserve it, kind of hurtz

can we talk more about mabel normand

>All Chaplin movies are of a piece, just as all WC Fields movies are of a piece ...and the Marx Borthers<

There's a big diff between Easy Street and Limelight, Duck Soup and The Big Store. Less variance in Fields' work, maybe cuz the prime of his film career was in his fifties and youthful exuberance was never part of his persona. Still, It's a Gift kicks Never Give a Sucker an Even Break's ass.

>[Chaplin's] physical comedy seems a little too WHOOPS! for me -- maybe it's that fast speed he liked because it made things "funnier" -- it's not funnier.<

SMS, you have likely seen prints or videos that were mastered at the wrong speed. (ie, makers of silent comedies didn't use beat-up film stock either)

Or maybe people just walked faster in the old days because they weren'
t used to the new technology like the automobile and the motion picture camera and they thought they had to walk faster to keep up with it.

I wonder how many of the Chaplin-bashing tossers have seen each waste of celluloid by Saturday Night Live alumni?

As far as Chaplin is concerned, it seems to me that it became received wisdom in the past few decades that the stoic lover of mature women Buster Keaton is vastly preferable to the schmaltzy cradle-robber Charlie Chaplin, so maybe it is time to redress the balance.

contemporary films are projected at 24fps. silent film speeds varied, but most chaplins should be projected around 16fps. of course for video it's a different issue--there are various ways of making a film appear to be run at the right speed in a video transfer (i think ntsc video is 25fps or something like that, i forget).

Was it mostly Europeans, tho? That would make sense -- his sensibility seems more European than any of his Hollywood contemporaries'. The whole sad-clown/trickster thing maybe resonates more with French and Italian ideas of commedia dell'arte than with broader and/or more deadpan American comedy (which could be why American viewers prefer the very American pacing and mayhem of the Sennett shorts). The most obvious Chaplin descendants I can think of are mostly European (Giulietta Masina, Jacques Tati).

Chaplin (re)invented cinema comedy grammar, hence all who followed are influenced whether they know it or not. Similar to Griffith with melodramas and chase sequences.

how do you mean? as an assertion this is both vague and broad.

max linder's films have some very chaplin-esque qualities, pre-chaplin. though a search for precedents is neverending, almost by definition.

Chiefly, no predecessor incorporated gags, set pieces, etc into a dramatic narrative to the degree he did.

Also, "The Gold Rush" is rather unimpeachable; some utterly majestic sequences...

In terms of his sound films, yes, he doesn't work so well in the format, but do not underestimate "Monsieur Verdoux", a notably dark film, with Chaplin's addressing-the-world tendency for once injecting a note of lasting despair. Well balanced by lighter moments. However, "A King in New York" is forlornly bad; a bitter film that just ends up seeming petty and stillborn. The self-regarding "Limelight" I am undecided about, and "The Great Dictator" is a bizarre panoply of tones and approaches...

And I think that's the rub. Up-thread, there is comment on his Victorian quality. He brings sophisticated physical comedy and high cultural signifiers (self-composed classical scores, lest we forget) together with all of the pathos and spectacle of the Victorian showman - whether Irving or Dan Leno. There are sentimental music-hall type songs/themes, such as "Smile" (melo) and exaggerated villains and desperate situations ('drama'). His tramp's a bit like a Dickensian protagonist, or a persecuted hero in mid-Victorian crime melodramas such as Tom Taylor's "Ticket of Leave Man".

It's not particularly easy to fully enjoy Chaplin on the terms set out by comedy in 2005, or even 1955...

this is amazing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcvjoWOwnn4

Saw The Gold Rush at the NY Film Fest today, w/ accompaniment by members of the NY Philharmonic. I didn't know that TGR (and other features of his) can't be theatrically exhibited unless there's an orcgestra of at least 13 pieces playing!

Anyway, tho I prefer Keaton's features in general, the dance of the rolls is one of the all-time great moments. And the laughs still counterbalanced the pathos at that point.

(...of his career, I mean)

if you don't like The Kid you're insane.

ha, forgot about this thread -- i disown most of what i said; chaplin subsequently became more or less my favorite film person ever.

i saw 'city lights' with an audience a couple years ago and it pretty much was the best film experience ever.

probably should quit ending sentences with 'ever.'

this thread just reminded me that i forgot to record Limelight on TCM last night. I've never seen it.

the MI5 file: "It may be that Chaplin is a communist sympathiser but on the information before us he would appear to be no more than a 'progressive', or radical."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/17/mi5-spied-on-charlie-chaplin

"City Lights" is being shown here at the end of March with accompaniment by the Cleveland Orchestra and I'm seriously considering going even though I just watched it again on Netflix not two months ago.

Ugh, went w/partner to a screening of The Gold Rush not realising it was the 1942 re-release.

"In 1942, Chaplin released a new version of The Gold Rush, taking the original silent 1925 film and composing and recording a musical score, adding a narration which he recorded himself, and tightening the editing which reduced the film's running time by several minutes.

DO NOT WANT. We ended up leaving about five minutes in; we couldn't take the narration any longer.

p sure I've only happened on to that version on TV long ago

the current DVD version of 'the gold rush' emphasizes that version and tacks on the original version as an 'extra,' apparently at the insistence of chaplin's family.

123 today. Showed my class the boxing match from City Lights; they laughed, so they I showed them the Oceana rolls from Gold Rush; they laughed at that, so I moved onto the factory scene from Modern Times.

Criterion set of The Gold Rush makes a restored edition of the reconstructed silent version (with an adaptation of the '42 musical score) fully available at last.

http://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/review/the-gold-rush/2341

I have to say it's risen even further in my esteem after seeing it this way at the NYFF last fall and another 3 times while absorbing this set. The emotional strings are plucked somewhat more subtly, maybe, than in City Lights and Modern Times, even if it's not as knockabout gritty as the shorts.

also, every auteur needs a chicken suit.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lw605siTyO1qa6obyo1_500.jpg

oh my local vid rental place got this in recently. excited!

happy 125th

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-chaplin-125

Graham Greene writes to CC after his banishment, one of the overlooked mega-moves of McCarthyism:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/119468/graham-greene-writes-support-charlie-chaplin-against-mccarthyism

“Charlie Chaplin’s The Tramp was released to the public through Essanay Studios on April 12th, 1915.... Chaplin has been much written about in the 100 years since he first captured the attention of the public, but his career is so jam-packed with messy attitudes and impulses that it still stands as a shifting, fresh body of work to marvel at and get lost in.”

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/charlie-chaplins-the-tramp-at-100

The Kid looks astonishing on the new Criterion blu-ray, and the movie itself is still a joy.

gets his own museum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comedy/comedians/charlie-chaplin-museum-opens-in-switzerland/

http://www.chaplinsworld.com/

Filmstruck loses his Keystone, Essanay and Mutual shorts in about 48 hours — which ones should I try to catch before then?

all the Mutuals

(if u must choose)

ive been working my way through the Essanays, and while there's great stuff in there he's clearly still eveolving, sometimes haltingly.

My friend wrote the Criterion essay for The Circus:

Roland “Rollie” Totheroh was Chaplin’s principal cameraman through Modern Times, and then continued to consult on the later features with younger cinematographers like Karl Struss. He also handled Chaplin’s special effects (for example, the miniature cabin and puppets in The Gold Rush) and was his film archivist. Being with the comic from 1916 to the closing of the Chaplin Studio, in 1952, he was immensely important for the iconic look of the films—particularly the sharp clarity of the alleys and run-down buildings of Charlie’s universe. A key but often overlooked player in developing the no-frills visual style where the main focus was always on Chaplin’s performance, Totheroh had this to say to interviewer Timothy J. Lyons right before his death in 1967:

“As a director Mr. Chaplin didn’t have anything to say as far as exposures, things like that. Otherwise, I used to say, ‘Take a look through here.’ The idea of that was that if he was directing, he’d have to know the field I was taking in. Of course, in the early days, the role of the cameraman was much bigger than it is now. It was up to the cameraman to decide what angle to shoot for lighting; or outside, which is the best angle on a building or whatever it is.”

In addition to being Charlie’s camera eye, as conservator of the Chaplin oeuvre Totheroh was responsible for many of the versions of the films that we see today—especially the First National shorts like A Dog’s Life (1918) and Shoulder Arms (1918), whose original negatives were worn out, resulting in new versions having to be assembled in the 1940s from outtakes and C and D negatives. In the early 1950s, with Chaplin exiled in Europe, it was Rollie who closed up the studio, bringing to an end an amazing decades-long run of extreme creativity.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6618-charlie-the-ringmaster

Overall, I love Chaplin, but his over-the-top sentimentality and preachiness can drive me crazy sometimes, especially in his talkies (in particular the famous speeches in The Great Dictator and Monsieur Verdoux). The Gold Rush and City Lights, however, are unfuckwithable.

.

The Circus may not be quite up to the three Tramp features surrounding it, but what is? And that monkey is really biting the hell out of his nose on the tightrope.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yUXgvwNf6Q

In his collected film criticism, James Agee makes a full-throated defense of Monsieur Verdoux as Chaplin's best film, which certainly runs counter to its general reception in 1947.

jonathan rosenbaum is also a fan of verdoux and rates chaplin's performance in it as one of the best ever, tho sadly i don't think he's written about it at length

I had forgotten that CC really keeps the melodrama to a minimum in The Kid even though that's what people remember most. His direction of Coogan must've been the work of a savant or genius.

The whole 'heaven' dream near the end seems jarring, but it makes the point that even the Tramp's paradise turns to shit.

heard that the scene in The Kid where Jackie Coogan is being taken away in the cart is so well-acted because he actually thought it was happening, not sure I would call that good direction exactly.

CANCEL!

“There was a scene in which we wanted Jackie to actually cry when two workhouse officials take him away from me. I told him all sorts of harrowing stories, but Jackie was in a very gay and mischievous mood. After waiting for an hour, the father said: ‘I’ll make him cry.’
‘Don’t frighten or hurt the boy,’ I said guiltily.
‘Oh no, no,’ said the father.
Jackie was in such a gay mood that I had not the courage to stay and watch what the father would do, so I went to my dressing-room. A few moments later I heard Jackie yelling and crying.
‘He’s all ready,’ said the father.
It was a scene where I rescue the boy from the workhouse officials and while he is weeping I hug and kiss him. When it was over I asked the father: ‘How did you get him to cry?’
‘I just told him that if he didn’t we’d take him away from the studio and really send him to the workhouse.’
I turned to Jackie and picked him up in my arms to console him. His cheeks were still wet with tears. ‘They’re not going to take you away[…]”
“I knew it,’ he whispered. ‘Daddy was only fooling.”

Chaplin's autobiography seems inconclusive -- Jackie might have been putting on a brave face for CC.

Jackie Coogan's parents were of course not the most compassionate people around.

There's hope for the world...my 12 year old loved City Lights and The Kid. He was blown away by Coogan too.

I've heard that Chaplin's book is extremely creative re provable facts.

yes, whatever the deal with Coogan (who Chaplin himself seems to have treated very well as far as I know), CC himself would have multiple reasons to get cancelled today - however this is an era which has DW Griffith doing his inexcusable thing and extras and stuntmen being regularly killed, Chaplin's films are definitely at the "less problematic" end of the scale.

One thing I love about The Kid is that it's an hour long, which is the seldom-used but correct length for a comedy film.

I wanted to do a poll: "Chaplin: Funny? Moving?" I found this thread instead, which was all the conversation I would have hoped for. (My answer is "neither", but I respect his work.)

The short films are funny. Morbz not around to agree with me :(

misogynist dickhead

He hated the police though! (See above)

these celebrity leftists always have a few good takes, that's how they get you

Why don't you fuck off and stop bringing everybody down, you miserable puritanical cunt?

in conclusion, Charlie Chaplin was a land of contrasts.

Mr. Fucking Predictable.

how come the most heated responses I provoke on here are consistently when I talk shit about abusers

You're like a bot or something.

thereotically if someone who wasn't me wanted to take shots at chaplin and other great men for their abuse would there be a place for them to do so here at all or is it just too much of a fucking buzzkill every time

That would be perfectly acceptable because I don't think anyone else here goes around inspecting threads for purity of thought like a beetle-browed John Knox clone.

I don't know Left, posting "misogynist dickhead" in ref to a man born in 1889 doesn't really scan as a concern with abuse/abusers, it's more like stating the absolutely obvious

*theoretically bc I remember this kind of thing is what soured my relationship with elements of the forum in the first place, of course I pushed back and was less inclined to be friendly on other subjects after that. my posts are a lot milder than they could be here but mods ban me again if you want idc xps

if it's so obvious why is it so enraging for someone to take issue with and why are we still worshipping great men

I wonder if he's the most problematic person born in 1889?

Yes, none of us had ever heard about Chaplin's life until you showed up in the thread to school us, thank you for that. But still we worship him, cargo cult style, oh noes.

look you could (have) just continue(d) discussing his work and just ignore(d) my comments

charlie craplin

I'm happy to leave it at "The short films are funny" tbh.

look you could (have) just continue(d) discussing his work and just ignore(d) my comments

you didn't write your comments for others to ignore, so coming from you this comment is totally disingenuous. you wanted to be noticed, deservedly got called miserable puritanical cunt, and you pretend it's none of your doing. fuck off with that noise.

eat shit

fuck men

eating shit may not be for everyone, i'll ask my doctor about it

https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/simone-weil-slavery-capitalism-revolution-christ

"When Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times was released in 1936, Weil not only recognized its formidable artistic vision and philosophical import, but found herself, whole, in the story: the Little Tramp was her. The film, she realized, uncannily captured the experience of the modern factory worker who, instead of using the machines, was being used and abused by them—to the point of being eaten alive. The poor worker became a tool at the mercy of alien forces: the assembly line, the factory, the whole capitalist system. Weil loved the film, even though watching it brought her no comfort; what she saw on screen was a replay of her own anguish. Just like Chaplin’s Little Tramp, the factory turned her into a thing."

Dana Carvey shared this on FB (public post): https://fb.watch/nu2nxwahL6/?mibextid=NnVzG8

This is one of my favorite #SNL short films. The brilliant Robert Smigel ( Triumph the Insult Comic Dog ) wrote it - and recruited me to play #Chaplin. I thought its premise was inspired. And I never turn down an opportunity to play Chaplin. Unfortunately it never made it to air.
It played at dress rehearsal to crickets, live crickets, and we still maintain that a human audience might have liked it. Here now, for the first time, watch ‘Chaplin’ and, for the trazillionth time, enjoy the magic of #PhilHartman, #JonLovitz, and I.

The philistines didn't get the final joke!

Hilariously, it also reminds me of a story about Paul Simon on the set of One-Trick Pony. I've never seen the movie so I have no idea which scene this refers to, but when they shot the first take, Simon talks with a supporting player who has a line that draws an enormous laugh from everyone after they yell cut. Simon picks up on this, privately talks to the director who then goes over to the other actor and says, "we're going to do another take but this time we're giving your lines to Paul."

Anyone who's seen One-Trick Pony* probably couldn't tell you what scene that was.

*I've seen it twice and own the Warner Archive DVD-R.

eat shit

― Left, Saturday, 24 April 2021 bookmarkflaglink

fuck men

― Left, Saturday, 24 April 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Does this apply to Lennon and McCartney?

It's kind of wild to think SNL has been on long enough to go from that Chaplin sketch bombing in dress to that January Jones Rear Window sketch making the cut and airing in the first 1/3 of an ep 20 or so years later.

The original SNL did a whole parody of Fellini's La Dolce Vita - it's pretty crazy what kind of arthouse film references they've packed into the show over the years. They were rarely funny, but then again SNL was always a very uneven show - it's perfect for clip shows for that reason.

Love Chaplin. Still the greatest comic actor in cinema IMHO.

who has a line that draws an enormous laugh from everyone after they yell cut

there's a similar story about Rodney Dangerfield on the set of Caddyshack... after he does some bit and nobody on the set laughs, he tells Bill Murray "I'm bombing out there, I'm just bombing" and Bill has to remind him that they're shooting a film, and that crew members are not supposed to laugh because it would ruin the take. Dangerfield only knew the standup world at that point

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T95GvS3u4mg

Odenkirk on that Chaplin sketch.

^^Includes the whole sketh for those who don't do the Facebook thing.

I think it would have appeared in either Geena Davis or Dolly Parton's shows from 1989 (the two closest to Chaplin's centennial).

This is one of those sketches that just plays better to creatives (all of whom have probably experienced others stealing their ideas) than it does everyone else

a dana carvey sketch and no one laughed? say it ain’t so

he’s so bad at telegraphing what he’s thinking, instead of just showing off his imitation skills - IN A SILENT SKETCH - that it takes a little while to even understand what the joke is supposed to be

I feel like that's an unfortunate byproduct of modern-day film (and television) comedy in general, and probably a big reason why I've exponentially grown to love Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, early Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase and other silent masters - that era was really the only time where all of a comedy was perfectly geared towards a visual medium for obvious reasons. Meanwhile, so much of a comedy in the modern era is based around sketch comedy and stand-up routines, becoming much more dependent on verbal cues.

*all of comedy

Darn these Talkies have ruined everything

https://img.nbc.com/sites/nbcunbc/files/images/2015/5/04/140208_2723724_Weekend_Update_Segment___Grumpy_Old_Man_anvver_1.jpg

In my day, we didn't have "DIALOGUE"!

That's an extremely clever sketch (idea) that somehow never actually reaches "funny".

I kind of like the few "famous stories about great artists" sketches I can remember from that era - it seems like a concept they really enjoyed doing, partly so they can go to town with depicting gross mischaracterizations. For example, the one where Ringo goes from "I'm just happy to be here!" to being really opinionated about the direction the Beatles should take during their formidable years, and also when Picasso is a loud-mouthed cheap buffoon who pays everything by scribbling a doodle. (Not even that - at one point he sneezes some snot into a tissue and says "why it's another masterpiece from Picasso!" and proceeds to sign it and toss it on to the ground, prompting all the waiters to dive for it.)

Showed my class the boxing match from City Lights; they laughed

Watching "City Lights" right now and the boxing match is so brilliantly choreographed - and funny. I feel like see dozens of "comical" boxing scenes in movies but this is the best by a million miles.

... I feel like I've seen, that is.

It really is, down to the split-second--especially the way Chaplin keeps disappearing behind the referee.