Salon.com > Charlie Chaplin

The perfect double bill: Classic Hollywood from “The Artist,” Chaplin

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:10:00 +0000

There is the thing. And things about the thing. Or, to dress that thought up, all proper-like, there is meta perspective, a post-ironic approach, or that old standby, the homage.

"The Artist" was a much-beloved phenomenon last year. An exquisitely crafted love letter to the lost Art of Silent Film, it levitated into the hearts of some audiences -- including just about all the critics and the ever-unreliable Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Why then, does it feel like such a chore to watch? And why do I feel guilty even thinking such a thing, let alone writing it? It’s like kicking the adorable Uggie the Dog.

Michel Hazanavicius approached this project with the most noble of intentions. To transport modern movie audiences back into time, by lovingly re-creating the vocabulary of the silent film. He succeeds totally in that department. But is this a round trip really worth taking? For "The Artist" seems like the master thesis of an absolutely brilliant film student, who really, really wants to impress the faculty on just how well he has done his homework. Hazanavicius has been candid on how he obsessively studied the silent film masters. Murnau’s "Sunrise" and "City Girl," and Chaplin’s "City Lights," were his textbooks, and it is clear that he read them well. Too well. There is the thing, and things about the thing.

DVDs you should have seen — but didn’t: Beat the winter blahs!

Wed, 02 Feb 2011 01:30:00 +0000

If you're new to this sporadic franchise, some guidelines to help you write letters of complaint:

1) Yes, the title is obnoxious. In many cases it may also be wildly inaccurate. No, I do not think that "Modern Times" or "The Night of the Hunter" are especially obscure releases.

2) Yes, lots of better known and more contemporary films have come out recently on DVD. Hey, have you heard about "The Social Network"? Yeah, it's pretty good. For that matter, plenty of terrific films we've covered extensively here, from Gaspar Noé's nutty and gorgeous "Enter the Void" to Jean-Pierre Jeunet's deliriously slapstick "Micmacs" to the mesmerizing documentary "The Tillman Story" (an Oscar omission, if you ask me) have made it to home video in the last few weeks.

“The Circus”: Chaplin’s little-known masterpiece

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 01:01:00 +0000

"Bring on the funny man!" howls the audience in Charlie Chaplin's 1928 "The Circus," as they jeer the mediocre, worn-out clowns at the eponymous second-rate circus. (We don't hear them say it, mind you; that's what it says in the intertitle.) The funny man can't hear them. He's outside, asleep in an abandoned donkey cart. It's Chaplin's iconic Tramp character, of course, and he doesn't know he's a big hit, or that he's funny at all. He blundered into the circus ring while running away from the cops, after being framed by a pickpocket for his crime -- producing a chase sequence that's among the most delirious, and hilarious, of Chaplin's career.

Yet the Tramp is not entirely innocent -- he has willingly received stolen property, and literally taken food from a baby -- and "The Circus" is much more than a comic-sentimental crowd-pleaser. Chaplin is universally recognized as a monumental figure in film history, not to mention the cultural history of the 20th century, so it seems silly to speak of his being underappreciated. But such, I believe, is the case. Like every truly great artist of an earlier era, Chaplin has to be periodically rediscovered in order for people to see past ingrained stereotypes and received wisdom.