Charlie Chaplin: C/D

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...

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.

Just watched the whole of Unknown Chaplin, which was showing at Film Forum as part of a Kevin Brownlow series. Amazing stuff.

That's an AWESOME documentary. Did they actually have a film print? I only know it as a TV documentary from the '80s, but since it's basically all film clips, I wondered if they actually made film prints to show in theaters.

I'm not sure if it was film or digital. Thinking maybe the latter but who knows. It was weird because the beginning and end titles were in French and named the French narrator instead of James Mason.

I'm so glad I made it. I clicked on the FF site, saw it was only playing today, had a window of opportunity and I took it. There was a little subway delay that made me nervous that I would be late, but I bought myself a couple of extra minutes by switching to the express at Rockefeller Center and managed to get there and not even worry too much about the couple at the front asking questions about their recent membership and getting a hat returned that was lost and found.

Thinking of Chaplin's marriage to Oona O'Neill (54-20, I think), where does he sit on the pariah spectrum these days?

See upthread. That kerfluffle already been done.

Not one but two of his other wives are in the doc, talking about him with affection.

See also: his brother, who was even worse apparently

Anyway, the doc is amazing, delivered on its promise to go behind the scenes and show us how he worked.

I guess he wasn't married to Georgia Hale, so one wife and one ex. And Oona gave them access to lots of material, although she does not appear onscreen.

She is thanked though, as Lady Chaplin.

Kevin Brownlow wrote a book after this documentary about it.

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

― Halfway there but for you, Saturday, April 24, 2021 1:52 PM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink

A quick scan here tells me probably safe:

https://www.google.com/search?q=famous+people+born+in+1889&rlz=1C1MMCH_enCA1144CA1145&oq=famous+people+born+in+1889&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIICAEQABgWGB4yCAgCEAAYFhgeMg0IAxAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBBAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMg0IBRAAGIYDGIAEGIoFMgcIBhAAGO8FMgcIBxAAGO8FMgoICBAAGIAEGKIE0gEJNjQ0MWoxajE1qAIIsAIB8QXmQgu8ywN1vvEF5kILvMsDdb4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8