Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique

On constance.kuriy... RemoveThis @ttu.edu wrote:

> In an interview with
> Frank Vreeland published in 1921, Chaplin said, "I'd hate a picture
> that was perfect--it would seem machine made. I want the human touch,
> so that you love the picture for its imperfections" (_Charlie Chaplin
> Interviews_, p. 55)
>
> Statements of intention don't get much more explicit than that.


I don't buy it. Frankly, it sounds like the same kind of BS that
Chaplin often peddled in interviews, though I'd agree that he didn't
mind imperfections in the areas he didn't care much about.

But the record shows that he also shot miles of takes, trying to
capture the exact effect he wanted. He'd have sets built, then order
them torn down and rebuilt differently. He'd have actors dismissed and
replaced with others, when their performances didn't suit him. He
directed actors to mimic his own interpretations of their scenes, and
if they didn't match his movements exactly, he'd have them do it over.
And over. And over.

Chaplin was a dedicated perfectionist in most areas of filmmaking,
but less demanding in others (technical effects, continuity).



--Shush--
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 17, 11:09 am, Shush <shushfilmseznos....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> On constance.kuriy....DeleteThis@ttu.edu wrote:
> > In an interview with
> > Frank Vreeland published in 1921, Chaplin said, "I'd hate a picture
> > that was perfect--it would seem machine made. I want the human touch,
> > so that you love the picture for its imperfections" (_Charlie Chaplin
> > Interviews_, p. 55)
>
> > Statements of intention don't get much more explicit than that.
>
> I don't buy it. Frankly, it sounds like the same kind of BS that
> Chaplin often peddled in interviews, though I'd agree that he didn't
> mind imperfections in the areas he didn't care much about.
>
> But the record shows that he also shot miles of takes, trying to
> capture the exact effect he wanted. He'd have sets built, then order
> them torn down and rebuilt differently. He'd have actors dismissed and
> replaced with others, when their performances didn't suit him. He
> directed actors to mimic his own interpretations of their scenes, and
> if they didn't match his movements exactly, he'd have them do it over.
> And over. And over.
>
> Chaplin was a dedicated perfectionist in most areas of filmmaking,
> but less demanding in others (technical effects, continuity).
>
> --Shush--

This is of course true, but you have to reconcile these facts with the
fact that he often did settle for imperfections, even dismiss
objections to what was done, so it was not a case of his not
knowing what he was doing. Leaving aside the possibility of simple
inconsistency, which can be a problem with Chaplin, I tend to think
that his perfectionism was very narrowly focussed on some detail
or nuance that he wanted to get just right, and that the rest he was
more casual about, even permissively casual about.

To return to the analogy to painting, many great artists of the
Renaissance ran shops that turned out a large number of pictures. The
master would sketch in the basic design and paint the parts of the
picture he thought needed to be optimally executed; the background or
less important human figures were painted by apprentices. There are
flaws in these paintings, but it wouldn't be correct to say that the
master was an poor craftsman. He set his priorities and perfected the
part of the work he felt needed to be perfected. The rest only had to
be good enough.

In the twentieth century, artists were more often inclined to
deliberately disregard or violate technical perfection, rather than
accepting imperfection as an expedient norm. Interview BS or not, by
the early 1920s Chaplin was reading enough to be aware of this trend,
and while I don't buy a lot of what he said in interviews, this
one remark makes sense in terms of what he did. What may have
started as carelessness was part of a conscious strategy by the time
he made _The Kid_.

I think it was Louis Gianetti in one of his early comments on Chaplin
who said that Chaplin's films had a homespun or home-made look, as
opposed to the slick studio product, to the point of being sometimes
"downright ugly." I wouldn't go that far. There's a kind of funky
beauty about them when they aren't quite beautiful, but I think
home-made is a pretty apt description, and I think it's an effect that
Chaplin at some point deliberately cultivated, partly by letting minor
flaws pass--especially if, as you say, they were in areas he
wasn't all that concerned about.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

constance.kuriy....DeleteThis@ttu.edu wrote:

> In the twentieth century, artists were more often inclined to
> deliberately disregard or violate technical perfection, rather than
> accepting imperfection as an expedient norm. Interview BS or not, by
> the early 1920s Chaplin was reading enough to be aware of this trend,
> and while I don't buy a lot of what he said in interviews, this
> one remark makes sense in terms of what he did. What may have
> started as carelessness was part of a conscious strategy by the time
> he made _The Kid_.

Do you have any specific examples? Because this doesn't sound very
likely to me. I think Chaplin was striving for utter perfection in the
areas that mattered to him. But in some areas he just didn't pay as
much attention, more likely because he felt that what wasn't of
interest to him wouldn't matter to his audience either.

I can't imagine that calling Paulette's MODERN TIMES character a
"gamin," rather than the proper term, "gamine," was part of a
deliberate strategy... surely it was just a simple (if glaring)
mistake.



> I think it was Louis Gianetti in one of his early comments on Chaplin
> who said that Chaplin's films had a homespun or home-made look, as
> opposed to the slick studio product, to the point of being sometimes
> "downright ugly." I wouldn't go that far. There's a kind of funky
> beauty about them when they aren't quite beautiful, but I think
> home-made is a pretty apt description, and I think it's an effect that
> Chaplin at some point deliberately cultivated, partly by letting minor
> flaws pass--especially if, as you say, they were in areas he
> wasn't all that concerned about.

The Chaplin films definitely do have a hand-made look to them, and
that's part of their charm. The Hal Roach comedies, which today might
be the most universally-loved films from that era, have a very hand-
made feel to them too. But I don't think that was deliberate. I think
it resulted from filmmakers doing the best they could at small studios
with relatively fewer resources than an M-G-M or a Paramount. The
Roach features, for example, sometimes have big, showy production
numbers, and they *still* look low-rent (not that I'm complaining).
The Chaplins sometimes give me the same feeling, but again, I love the
films and don't feel cheated by the lack of gloss and polish.



--Shush--
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 18, 7:25 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos....RemoveThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> constance.kuriy....RemoveThis@ttu.edu wrote:
> > In the twentieth century, artists were more often inclined to
> > deliberately disregard or violate technical perfection, rather than
> > accepting imperfection as an expedient norm. Interview BS or not, by
> > the early 1920s Chaplin was reading enough to be aware of this trend,
> > and while I don't buy a lot of what he said in interviews, this
> > one remark makes sense in terms of what he did. What may have
> > started as carelessness was part of a conscious strategy by the time
> > he made _The Kid_.
>
> Do you have any specific examples? Because this doesn't sound very
> likely to me. I think Chaplin was striving for utter perfection in the
> areas that mattered to him. But in some areas he just didn't pay as
> much attention, more likely because he felt that what wasn't of
> interest to him wouldn't matter to his audience either.
>
> I can't imagine that calling Paulette's MODERN TIMES character a
> "gamin," rather than the proper term, "gamine," was part of a
> deliberate strategy... surely it was just a simple (if glaring)
> mistake.
>
> > I think it was Louis Gianetti in one of his early comments on Chaplin
> > who said that Chaplin's films had a homespun or home-made look, as
> > opposed to the slick studio product, to the point of being sometimes
> > "downright ugly." I wouldn't go that far. There's a kind of funky
> > beauty about them when they aren't quite beautiful, but I think
> > home-made is a pretty apt description, and I think it's an effect that
> > Chaplin at some point deliberately cultivated, partly by letting minor
> > flaws pass--especially if, as you say, they were in areas he
> > wasn't all that concerned about.
>
> The Chaplin films definitely do have a hand-made look to them, and
> that's part of their charm. The Hal Roach comedies, which today might
> be the most universally-loved films from that era, have a very hand-
> made feel to them too. But I don't think that was deliberate. I think
> it resulted from filmmakers doing the best they could at small studios
> with relatively fewer resources than an M-G-M or a Paramount. The
> Roach features, for example, sometimes have big, showy production
> numbers, and they *still* look low-rent (not that I'm complaining).
> The Chaplins sometimes give me the same feeling, but again, I love the
> films and don't feel cheated by the lack of gloss and polish.
>
> --Shush--

Are Chaplin's films more low-rent looking than those of his peers?
Certainly
his talkies can be amatuerishly bad in the technical sense at times,
but I
view these, as great as some parts of them are, as aberrations. He
was a master
in one form then he was thrown into another - they're good films to
have, but not
his art at its zenith, and often the technical lapses are are of a
piece with the
writing and acting lapses. The careers of his peers in talkies -
Keaton, Lloyd - were
pretty haphazard as well.

But in the silents was his stuff so much worse than his peers in the
technical
sense? Or was it just more understated and necessarily of smaller
dimension?
His art was based in the subtle communication of emotion, his great
set pieces
- the dance of the rolls, the end of City Lights, his embrace of the
Kid - are all close-ups
and medium shots. His frenzied legendary insistence in getting the
emotion "right", take
after take, necessarily means that that's where his emphasis lies as
filmmaker. And
in that supreme communication as seen in the end of City Lights, is
the reason Chaplin made and continues
to make a connection with human hearts beyond those made by his peers
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 18, 7:25 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos... RemoveThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
> constance.kuriy... RemoveThis @ttu.edu wrote:
> > In the twentieth century, artists were more often inclined to
> > deliberately disregard or violate technical perfection, rather than
> > accepting imperfection as an expedient norm. Interview BS or not, by
> > the early 1920s Chaplin was reading enough to be aware of this trend,
> > and while I don't buy a lot of what he said in interviews, this
> > one remark makes sense in terms of what he did. What may have
> > started as carelessness was part of a conscious strategy by the time
> > he made _The Kid_.
>
> Do you have any specific examples? Because this doesn't sound very
> likely to me. I think Chaplin was striving for utter perfection in the
> areas that mattered to him. But in some areas he just didn't pay as
> much attention, more likely because he felt that what wasn't of
> interest to him wouldn't matter to his audience either.
>
> I can't imagine that calling Paulette's MODERN TIMES character a
> "gamin," rather than the proper term, "gamine," was part of a
> deliberate strategy... surely it was just a simple (if glaring)
> mistake.

That no doubt started as a mistake, but in spite of the fact that
Chaplin kept a Webster's International Dictionary at the studio and
employed many people who had more formal education than he
did, no one ever corrected it. Chaplin changed other minor details
in his films, but he never corrected this, and it's the sort of thing
I
wonder about. Paulette's character is presented as a rather
tomboyish, piratical character who takes the initiative, providing
food, shelter, and jobs for herself and the Tramp, whereas the
Tramp is relatively passive and inefffectual. This kind of play with
conventional gender boundaries is very typical of Chaplin's films.
It's traditional comic stuff, but it's much more pronounced in
Chaplin's work than it is in Keaton's or Lloyd's.

Chaplin occasionally leaves accidental details of performance in his
films as well. In _Modern Times_, for example, when the Tramp
decides to run away with he Gamin, he catches his foot on the curb
as he runs after her and breaks stride. This is pretty clearly not
intentional, and Chaplin must have made more than one take of this
shot, but he chose to use the one in which he accidently caught his
foot.

Then ther's the ending of _City Lights_, which most people consider
Chaplin's art at its peak. This was done in relatively few takes, and
according to Chaplin's account of it in his interview with Richard
Meryman, the result was partly accidental:

"I was looking more at her and interested in her, and I detached
myself in a way that gives a beautiful sensation. I'm not acting.
Sort of standing outside of myself and looking, studying her
reactions and being slightly embarassed about it. And it came
off. I took several takes before that, but they were all overdone and
overfelt. But this one, for some reason, was objective and
apologetic. It's a beautiful scene . . . ." (Vance 364).

This scene also includes shifts in the position of the rose which
Chaplin can hardlly have been unaware of when he edited the film.

> > I think it was Louis Gianetti in one of his early comments on Chaplin
> > who said that Chaplin's films had a homespun or home-made look, as
> > opposed to the slick studio product, to the point of being sometimes
> > "downright ugly." I wouldn't go that far. There's a kind of funky
> > beauty about them when they aren't quite beautiful, but I think
> > home-made is a pretty apt description, and I think it's an effect that
> > Chaplin at some point deliberately cultivated, partly by letting minor
> > flaws pass--especially if, as you say, they were in areas he
> > wasn't all that concerned about.
>
> The Chaplin films definitely do have a hand-made look to them, and
> that's part of their charm. The Hal Roach comedies, which today might
> be the most universally-loved films from that era, have a very hand-
> made feel to them too. But I don't think that was deliberate. I think
> it resulted from filmmakers doing the best they could at small studios
> with relatively fewer resources than an M-G-M or a Paramount. The
> Roach features, for example, sometimes have big, showy production
> numbers, and they *still* look low-rent (not that I'm complaining).
> The Chaplins sometimes give me the same feeling, but again, I love the
> films and don't feel cheated by the lack of gloss and polish.
>
> --Shush--

I agree that some low-budget films have their charm (though I don't
feel that way about many indy films, whose low production values
tend to annoy me). But I don't think Chaplin's films from the
Mutuals on are low-budget. He spent a lot of money on sets in order
to get a specific effect he wanted, and didn't spend money when he
didn't think it was necessary. None of the sets in _City Lights_ look
cheap to me, though they are definitely stylized.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

bachu....DeleteThis@rogers.com wrote:

> Are Chaplin's films more low-rent looking than those of his peers?
> Certainly
> his talkies can be amatuerishly bad in the technical sense at times,
> but I
> view these, as great as some parts of them are, as aberrations. He
> was a master
> in one form then he was thrown into another - they're good films to
> have, but not
> his art at its zenith, and often the technical lapses are are of a
> piece with the
> writing and acting lapses.
>
> But in the silents was his stuff so much worse than his peers in the
> technical
> sense? Or was it just more understated and necessarily of smaller
> dimension?


I don't get the low-rent feeling at from the silents, though that
riverfront set for CITY LIGHTS always looks like a movie set to me.

The talkies are the ones that give me the feeling. And I don't mean
that the films look like something from Monogram or PRC, I just mean
that you can tell they were made in a little studio... and they were.
The Chaplin lot was a bit on the small side to begin with, but when he
had to wall off his shooting stages and put roofs over them, it
effectively became smaller still.

When you watch a lot of films from the '30s and '40s, you can just
tell whether one was made by a major studio or a minor one. Even M-G-
M's B movies have a slick look to them, while Grand National's most
ambitious films (the Cagneys for example) just look chintzy somehow.
I'm not saying the Chaplin talkies look chintzy, but on the other hand
they always look like they were made in a small studio by a handful of
craftsmen. That's not necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, just a
characteristic.



--Shush--
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

constance.kuriy....RemoveThis@ttu.edu wrote:

> Paulette's character is presented as a rather
> tomboyish, piratical character who takes the initiative, providing
> food, shelter, and jobs for herself and the Tramp, whereas the
> Tramp is relatively passive and inefffectual. This kind of play with
> conventional gender boundaries is very typical of Chaplin's films.

Paulette's character is an interesting one, but really all of
Chaplin's features have interesting female leads in them. Until his
divorce from Mildred Harris, all we ever got was Edna Purviance
standing around looking pretty, existing simply to be flirted with or
rescued. But around the time of THE KID, suddenly the women are much
more compelling characters. I think it's a strength of Chaplin's
mature films that he never gets much credit for. In that respect, he's
miles ahead of Keaton and Lloyd.

I don't know that I'd agree with you about the flipped gender
boundaries in MODERN TIMES as typical in his films, though. What does
strike me as typical is that the woman isn't necessarily needy for the
hero's affection and leadership.


> I agree that some low-budget films have their charm (though I don't
> feel that way about many indy films, whose low production values
> tend to annoy me). But I don't think Chaplin's films from the
> Mutuals on are low-budget. He spent a lot of money on sets in order
> to get a specific effect he wanted, and didn't spend money when he
> didn't think it was necessary. None of the sets in _City Lights_ look
> cheap to me, though they are definitely stylized.

I guess THE GREAT DICTATOR is the one that bugs me. The ghetto
doesn't *feel* like a ghetto, it feels like a studio back lot...
unlike the slums in THE KID and earlier films. Chaplin will use 20 or
30 dress extras as stormtroopers, when there ought to be 50 or 75 of
them. Then there's that train!

Anyway, it's good to see some discussion about Chaplin around here.
The George Shelps Show gets old fast.



--Shush--
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On 21 May 2007 10:34:48 -0700, Shush <shushfilmseznospam.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:

>constance.kuriy...@ttu.edu wrote:
>
>> Paulette's character is presented as a rather
>> tomboyish, piratical character who takes the initiative, providing
>> food, shelter, and jobs for herself and the Tramp, whereas the
>> Tramp is relatively passive and inefffectual. This kind of play with
>> conventional gender boundaries is very typical of Chaplin's films.

Maybe he played with "conventional gender boundaries' a bit in MT but certainly
not with gender itself. The Gamin is always clearly a young woman - she wears a
dress, she displays clearly feminine reactions and behaviour, such as on the toy
floor of the department store and as a dancer, and in her interactions with her
siblings, her father and the Tramp.

I think the some of the Tramp's passivity in the story is due to his mental
state. Don't forget he gets committed like fifteen minutes into the film.

I agree with Shush that the female leads in CC's features are much stronger as
characters than they were in earlier CC films, and in the Lloyd films. (I'm
currently making my way through the dvd set).

>
> Paulette's character is an interesting one, but really all of
>Chaplin's features have interesting female leads in them. Until his
>divorce from Mildred Harris, all we ever got was Edna Purviance
>standing around looking pretty, existing simply to be flirted with or
>rescued. But around the time of THE KID, suddenly the women are much
>more compelling characters. I think it's a strength of Chaplin's
>mature films that he never gets much credit for. In that respect, he's
>miles ahead of Keaton and Lloyd.
>
> I don't know that I'd agree with you about the flipped gender
>boundaries in MODERN TIMES as typical in his films, though. What does
>strike me as typical is that the woman isn't necessarily needy for the
>hero's affection and leadership.
>
>
>> I agree that some low-budget films have their charm (though I don't
>> feel that way about many indy films, whose low production values
>> tend to annoy me). But I don't think Chaplin's films from the
>> Mutuals on are low-budget. He spent a lot of money on sets in order
>> to get a specific effect he wanted, and didn't spend money when he
>> didn't think it was necessary. None of the sets in _City Lights_ look
>> cheap to me, though they are definitely stylized.
>
> I guess THE GREAT DICTATOR is the one that bugs me. The ghetto
>doesn't *feel* like a ghetto, it feels like a studio back lot...
>unlike the slums in THE KID and earlier films. Chaplin will use 20 or
>30 dress extras as stormtroopers, when there ought to be 50 or 75 of
>them. Then there's that train!
>
> Anyway, it's good to see some discussion about Chaplin around here.
>The George Shelps Show gets old fast.
>
>
>
>--Shush--
>
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 21, 12:34 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> constance.kuriy....DeleteThis@ttu.edu wrote:
> > Paulette's character is presented as a rather
> > tomboyish, piratical character who takes the initiative, providing
> > food, shelter, and jobs for herself and the Tramp, whereas the
> > Tramp is relatively passive and inefffectual. This kind of play with
> > conventional gender boundaries is very typical of Chaplin's films.
>
> Paulette's character is an interesting one, but really all of
> Chaplin's features have interesting female leads in them. Until his
> divorce from Mildred Harris, all we ever got was Edna Purviance
> standing around looking pretty, existing simply to be flirted with or
> rescued. But around the time of THE KID, suddenly the women are much
> more compelling characters. I think it's a strength of Chaplin's
> mature films that he never gets much credit for. In that respect, he's
> miles ahead of Keaton and Lloyd.
>
> I don't know that I'd agree with you about the flipped gender
> boundaries in MODERN TIMES as typical in his films, though.

Consider _The Kid_, for starters. Edna is initially helpless and
confused, but once she's freed from the obligation of raising a child,
her career flourishes, and she's able to buy her son back in the end.
Charlie, on the other hand, becomes the single parent and caregiver,
assuming both a maternal and a paternal role.

Or consider _The Gold Rush_. Big JIm and, later, Hank Curtis,
protect and rescue Charlie, who then assumes the traditionally
female roles of cook and housekeeper. Georgia, too, is dominant
relative to Charlie in that she is less attracted to the male
charracters than they are to her. She has the power of choice, and
exploits it, whereas Charlie finds himself in the typical female
position of waiting and hoping that he'll be noticed.

Or consider the closing scenes of _City Lights_. The Blind Girl was
disadvantaged because she was blind and poor, not because she was
female. All it takes to empower her is her eyesight, and a little
money. At the end of the film, she is clearly in control of her life,
whereas Charlie is powerless, totally dependent on her response to
learning who he is.

> What does
> strike me as typical is that the woman isn't necessarily needy for the
> hero's affection and leadership.

Charlie is helpful to the Gamin at some points, of course, mostly
in facilitating her escapes and giving her food and a taste of
luxury in the department store. But typically, getting him to take
that job is her idea.

> > I agree that some low-budget films have their charm (though I don't
> > feel that way about many indy films, whose low production values
> > tend to annoy me). But I don't think Chaplin's films from the
> > Mutuals on are low-budget. He spent a lot of money on sets in order
> > to get a specific effect he wanted, and didn't spend money when he
> > didn't think it was necessary. None of the sets in _City Lights_ look
> > cheap to me, though they are definitely stylized.
>
> I guess THE GREAT DICTATOR is the one that bugs me. The ghetto
> doesn't *feel* like a ghetto, it feels like a studio back lot...
> unlike the slums in THE KID and earlier films. Chaplin will use 20 or
> 30 dress extras as stormtroopers, when there ought to be 50 or 75 of
> them. Then there's that train!

But is it *supposed* to be a realistic ghetto? I'm not sure. All the
signs are in Esperanto. I sometimes think it would have been a better
strategy in _Dictator_ to make the sets as cartoonish as the
characters, rather than vacillating between realism and obvious
artifice, which is sort of what the film does.

The train has never bothered me. I've always taken it as a cardboard
train delivering two cardboard
characters .
This might work better if
it were part of a sustained design.

> Anyway, it's good to see some discussion about Chaplin around here.
> The George Shelps Show gets old fast.
>
> --Shush--

Amen.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 21, 12:34 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos....DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> constance.kuriy....DeleteThis@ttu.edu wrote:
> > Paulette's character is presented as a rather
> > tomboyish, piratical character who takes the initiative, providing
> > food, shelter, and jobs for herself and the Tramp, whereas the
> > Tramp is relatively passive and inefffectual. This kind of play with
> > conventional gender boundaries is very typical of Chaplin's films.
>
> Paulette's character is an interesting one, but really all of
> Chaplin's features have interesting female leads in them. Until his
> divorce from Mildred Harris, all we ever got was Edna Purviance
> standing around looking pretty, existing simply to be flirted with or
> rescued. But around the time of THE KID, suddenly the women are much
> more compelling characters. I think it's a strength of Chaplin's
> mature films that he never gets much credit for. In that respect, he's
> miles ahead of Keaton and Lloyd.
>
> I don't know that I'd agree with you about the flipped gender
> boundaries in MODERN TIMES as typical in his films, though.

Consider _The Kid_, for starters. Edna is initially helpless and
confused, but once she's freed from the obligation of raising a child,
her career flourishes, and she's able to buy her son back in the end.
Charlie, on the other hand, becomes the single parent and caregiver,
assuming both a maternal and a paternal role.

Or consider _The Gold Rush_. Big JIm and, later, Hank Curtis,
protect and rescue Charlie, who then assumes the traditionally
female roles of cook and housekeeper. Georgia, too, is dominant
relative to Charlie in that she is less attracted to the male
charracters than they are to her. She has the power of choice, and
exploits it, whereas Charlie finds himself in the typical female
position of waiting and hoping that he'll be noticed.

Or consider the closing scenes of _City Lights_. The Blind Girl was
disadvantaged because she was blind and poor, not because she was
female. All it takes to empower her is her eyesight, and a little
money. At the end of the film, she is clearly in control of her life,
whereas Charlie is powerless, totally dependent on her response to
learning who he is.

> What does
> strike me as typical is that the woman isn't necessarily needy for the
> hero's affection and leadership.

Charlie is helpful to the Gamin at some points, of course, mostly
in facilitating her escapes and giving her food and a taste of
luxury in the department store. But typically, getting him to take
that job is her idea.

> > I agree that some low-budget films have their charm (though I don't
> > feel that way about many indy films, whose low production values
> > tend to annoy me). But I don't think Chaplin's films from the
> > Mutuals on are low-budget. He spent a lot of money on sets in order
> > to get a specific effect he wanted, and didn't spend money when he
> > didn't think it was necessary. None of the sets in _City Lights_ look
> > cheap to me, though they are definitely stylized.
>
> I guess THE GREAT DICTATOR is the one that bugs me. The ghetto
> doesn't *feel* like a ghetto, it feels like a studio back lot...
> unlike the slums in THE KID and earlier films. Chaplin will use 20 or
> 30 dress extras as stormtroopers, when there ought to be 50 or 75 of
> them. Then there's that train!

But is it *supposed* to be a realistic ghetto? I'm not sure. All the
signs are in Esperanto. I sometimes think it would have been a better
strategy in _Dictator_ to make the sets as cartoonish as the
characters, rather than vacillating between realism and obvious
artifice, which is sort of what the film does.

The train has never bothered me. I've always taken it as a cardboard
train delivering two cardboard
characters .
This might work better if
it were part of a sustained design.

> Anyway, it's good to see some discussion about Chaplin around here.
> The George Shelps Show gets old fast.
>
> --Shush--

Amen.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

On May 21, 4:33 pm, "constance.kuriy...@ttu.edu"
<constance.kuriy....RemoveThis@ttu.edu> wrote:
> On May 21, 12:34 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos....RemoveThis@yahoo.com>
> > I don't know that I'd agree with you about the flipped gender
> > boundaries in MODERN TIMES as typical in his films, though.
> Consider _The Kid_, for starters. Edna is initially helpless and
> confused, but once she's freed from the obligation of raising a child,
> her career flourishes, and she's able to buy her son back in the end.
> Charlie, on the other hand, becomes the single parent and caregiver,
> assuming both a maternal and a paternal role.
> Or consider _The Gold Rush_. Big JIm and, later, Hank Curtis,
> protect and rescue Charlie, who then assumes the traditionally
> female roles of cook and housekeeper. Georgia, too, is dominant
> relative to Charlie in that she is less attracted to the male
> charracters than they are to her. She has the power of choice, and
> exploits it, whereas Charlie finds himself in the typical female
> position of waiting and hoping that he'll be noticed.
> Or consider the closing scenes of _City Lights_. The Blind Girl was
> disadvantaged because she was blind and poor, not because she was
> female. All it takes to empower her is her eyesight, and a little
> money. At the end of the film, she is clearly in control of her life,
> whereas Charlie is powerless, totally dependent on her response to
> learning who he is.

Hannah in The Great Dictator was more feisty and combative (slamming
Nazis
with a frying pan) than the nebbish Jewish Barber character, too,
wasn't she?

And in Verdoux, the film in which many say Chaplin's supposed
misogynist tendencies
come to the fore, the two most prominent female characters are
survivors - the dynamic
and indestructible Martha Raye, and the prostitute who attains wealth
by marrying a munitions
dealer, and who watches as the killer Verdoux is condemned to death.

The brassy advertising exec who has Shadov jumping through hoops in A
King
in New York and Sophia Loren as the stowaway who gets what she wants
in
Countess from Hong Kong continue Chaplin's line of dynamic, assertive
female leads.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

Shush wrote:

>The George Shelps Show gets old fast.

Agreed!

Just ell your pals to behave themslves and stop wandering off-topic
and all will be Chaplin.
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique 

<bachusio DeleteThis @rogers.com> wrote in message
news:1179723797.331056.151020@y18g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
> On May 18, 7:25 pm, Shush <shushfilmseznos... DeleteThis @yahoo.com> wrote:
>> constance.kuriy... DeleteThis @ttu.edu wrote:
>> > In the twentieth century, artists were more often inclined to
>> > deliberately disregard or violate technical perfection, rather than
>> > accepting imperfection as an expedient norm. Interview BS or not, by
>> > the early 1920s Chaplin was reading enough to be aware of this trend,
>> > and while I don't buy a lot of what he said in interviews, this
>> > one remark makes sense in terms of what he did. What may have
>> > started as carelessness was part of a conscious strategy by the time
>> > he made _The Kid_.
>>
>> Do you have any specific examples? Because this doesn't sound very
>> likely to me. I think Chaplin was striving for utter perfection in the
>> areas that mattered to him. But in some areas he just didn't pay as
>> much attention, more likely because he felt that what wasn't of
>> interest to him wouldn't matter to his audience either.
>>
>> I can't imagine that calling Paulette's MODERN TIMES character a
>> "gamin," rather than the proper term, "gamine," was part of a
>> deliberate strategy... surely it was just a simple (if glaring)
>> mistake.
>>
>> > I think it was Louis Gianetti in one of his early comments on Chaplin
>> > who said that Chaplin's films had a homespun or home-made look, as
>> > opposed to the slick studio product, to the point of being sometimes
>> > "downright ugly." I wouldn't go that far. There's a kind of funky
>> > beauty about them when they aren't quite beautiful, but I think
>> > home-made is a pretty apt description, and I think it's an effect that
>> > Chaplin at some point deliberately cultivated, partly by letting minor
>> > flaws pass--especially if, as you say, they were in areas he
>> > wasn't all that concerned about.
>>
>> The Chaplin films definitely do have a hand-made look to them, and
>> that's part of their charm. The Hal Roach comedies, which today might
>> be the most universally-loved films from that era, have a very hand-
>> made feel to them too. But I don't think that was deliberate. I think
>> it resulted from filmmakers doing the best they could at small studios
>> with relatively fewer resources than an M-G-M or a Paramount. The
>> Roach features, for example, sometimes have big, showy production
>> numbers, and they *still* look low-rent (not that I'm complaining).
>> The Chaplins sometimes give me the same feeling, but again, I love the
>> films and don't feel cheated by the lack of gloss and polish.
>>
>> --Shush--
>
> Are Chaplin's films more low-rent looking than those of his peers?
> Certainly
> his talkies can be amatuerishly bad in the technical sense at times,
> but I
> view these, as great as some parts of them are, as aberrations. He
> was a master
> in one form then he was thrown into another - they're good films to
> have, but not
> his art at its zenith, and often the technical lapses are are of a
> piece with the
> writing and acting lapses. The careers of his peers in talkies -
> Keaton, Lloyd - were
> pretty haphazard as well.
>
> But in the silents was his stuff so much worse than his peers in the
> technical
> sense? Or was it just more understated and necessarily of smaller
> dimension?
> His art was based in the subtle communication of emotion, his great
> set pieces
> - the dance of the rolls, the end of City Lights, his embrace of the
> Kid - are all close-ups
> and medium shots. His frenzied legendary insistence in getting the
> emotion "right", take
> after take, necessarily means that that's where his emphasis lies as
> filmmaker. And
> in that supreme communication as seen in the end of City Lights, is
> the reason Chaplin made and continues
> to make a connection with human hearts beyond those made by his peers
>

I think CITY LIGHTS is the prime example of how Chaplin's art went far
beyond mere cinematic technique.

I don't really buy the argument that Keaton or Lloyd were better
"filmmakers". Lloyd's films do have an extremely technical polish, and
Keaton certainly pushed the technical abilities of the medium to imaginitve
heights unmatched, but Chaplin conveys so much through the camera to the
audience that I can overlook occasional imperfections in certain areas. That
said, I'm somewhat in the minority because to me, Chaplin's films don't look
low rent or amateurish at all, but are instead some of the most visually
stunning films I can remember ever seeing (I've commented at length on this
before here-but my favorite examples include the waterfront scenes in MODERN
TIMES, among many others).
--
Matt Barry
http://mysite.verizon.net/mattbarry84
View my films at:
www.youtube.com/comedyfilm
Read my essays and articles at:
http://filmreel.blogspot.com
 >> Stay informed about: Chaplin's "Imperfect" Technique