New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book

This is an incredible book. I just got it today. You don't have to be
an Los Angelino to enjoy this. Bengston not only compares then-and-now
locations, but he also shows stills of Chaplin gags that other
comedians either originated or appropriated.

Rob Farr

David B. Pearson wrote:
> On 8/25/06 6:48 PM, in article IbmdncVDnuxXEHLZnZ2dnUVZ_qSdnZ2d RemoveThis @rcn.net,
> "Lonnie N" <lonnien RemoveThis @starpower.net> wrote:
>
> > Hey Everybody:
> >
> > Just got my copy of "Silent Traces." the new Chaplin then-and-now book by
> > John Bengston.
> >
> > Let me assure everybody that I am NOT - in any way connected to his
> > publishing house or to him - but I just wanted to recommend it very highly.
> > It's really a fun visual book to look at!!
> >
> > Lonnie N.
>
>
> Chaplin book number 33 is now on its way to my mailbox...
>
> :-)
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

Silent Traces Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie
Chaplin John Bengtson Santa Monica Press: 304 pp., $24.95

By Glen David Gold, Glen David Gold is the author of the novel "Carter
Beats the Devil." His new novel will look at Hollywood during World War
I.


JOHN BENGTSON'S "Silent Traces" is a delightfully obsessive piece of
artistic detective work. It's an aggressive act of deconstruction,
performed in such a loving, relentless, mindful way - no theory, only
practice - that it would make the ghost of Jacques Derrida weep with
pleasure.

Bengtson has gone through 43 of Charlie Chaplin's movies made between
1914 and 1940 and figured out where he shot nearly every exterior
location. Where possible, he has found contemporary photographs to show
what the locations looked like when put to their daily use and current
photographs to show how they look now. There are also maps, diagrams,
stills and images from various archives to flesh things out. His text
walks you through Chaplin's career, Hollywood geography and
architecture and city planning, and Bengtson's own 2005-era detective
work.

For instance, Page 178 gives us a frame from the famous 1918 "Shoulder
Arms" sequence in which Chaplin, disguised as a tree, runs from a
German soldier and hides among other trees. Having seen this film, I
had wondered where such a distinctive windbreak of eucalyptus trees was
to be found. Bengtson has the answer, with a 1920 aerial shot of
Beverly Hills and an arrow toward a Black Forest-sized stand of
eucalyptus trees running parallel with Wilshire Boulevard, a.k.a. the
battlefields of France.

Turn the page and there's a breakdown of Chaplin's awful 1919 pastoral,
"Sunnyside." This was shot during his first marriage in what looks like
the middle of a rustic idyll. And yet the author compares a mountain
range in one frame with the view from the intersection of California
Street and Alameda Avenue in Burbank and finds a perfect match. In
other words, he points out what we already knew: What was once farmland
is now the NBC Studios.

And so it goes, film after film, with distinctive skylines and rooftop
advertisements and street signs circled like defense exhibits, belly to
belly with real-life photographs of the same places, the before and
after of an extreme makeover.

I stand in awe, the way you might when encountering a model of Paris
made of toothpicks. Which is limiting - obsession usually carries its
own self-propelled meaning and then grinds to a halt. Though there's a
treasure trove of previously unknown information about the silent-film
era, the book does not pontificate much on, for instance, how its
findings help us to understand Chaplin's art form. So why bother with
this project, particularly when the author has already done a similar
job with the films of Buster Keaton ("Silent Echoes")?

The foreword by Kevin Brownlow suggests that the project can help us
understand early Hollywood history. Which is true. It's startling to
read, for instance, about the destruction of old Chinatown (where
Chaplin frequently shot). But there's more to it.

Many students of film first encounter the phrase "diegetic effect" in
Noel Burch's "To the Distant Observer," a study of Japanese cinema. It
refers to the process by which art ceases to be brush strokes, words on
a page or sequential camera angles and becomes instead, through the
psychological machination of our perceptions, a reflection of reality.
When we watch a movie that we like, we are absorbed in the story,
accepting close-ups, dissolves, cuts and pans without being jolted
"awake."

Unless you live in Los Angeles. Because should you go see a
tear-jerker, in the midst of a painful goodbye scene, you might just
hear someone in the audience whispering, "That's my house in the
background!" Our paradise carries some interesting narrative baggage,
and simply seeing a certain vista in the right light can pop the
process of absorption like a water balloon. Bengtson's work is a daring
finger in the diegetic eye, asking everyone, Angeleno and otherwise, to
stop looking at the story and instead pay attention to trolley tracks,
reflections in windows, signs of exterior life.

When Chaplin shot films here, they were universal tales as resonant to
a Ceylonese laborer as to a member of the Duma. Simultaneously, they
were staged against a landscape that stood in for the Lambeth section
of London, where Chaplin spent his abominable childhood. Because of
that, there is something of dream logic in trying to determine what
identity a building actually has. Take "The Fireman," shot at Lillian
Way and Eleanor Avenue in 1916. The sets were at the studio, but the
fire station was a real fire station, No. 29, which Bengtson has
located on South Western Avenue. The top floor is now a carpet store,
and the ground floor is a Korean bridal shop.

This is architectural layering. Anywhere else on earth, that phrase
refers to how newer buildings grow up among old ones, how places are
half torn down and reconstructed, so that a skyline is never from one
era but carries with it the partly-corrupted memories of previous
incarnations. Los Angeles is a special place, however, in that its
buildings are also layered among the cradles of fantasy and speculation
for the rest of the planet. So a fire station is a real fire station,
but it's also a farcical South London fire station, and a universal one
and a bridal shop. Obviously, the least real identity is the one that
Chaplin assigned it for a day or so 90 years ago.

And yet the red brick building ages, it's remodeled, people who
remember its original use die, and one day it will no longer be a
bridal shop, but still, because ars longa, it's always going to be a
fake fire station. The architecture has become part of a communal
dream, and we are absorbed before we know we're participating.

"Silent Traces" is a fascinating study of the ephemeral and the lasting
image and how those things can swap places without it even being
perceived.


copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

To be honest I have never heard of Jacques Derrida's
"deconstruction" or Noel Burch's "diegetic effect," but
apparently my book is full of it : )

John Bengtson

Richard Carnahan wrote:
> Silent Traces Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie
> Chaplin John Bengtson Santa Monica Press: 304 pp., $24.95
>
> By Glen David Gold, Glen David Gold is the author of the novel "Carter
> Beats the Devil." His new novel will look at Hollywood during World War
> I.
>
>
> JOHN BENGTSON'S "Silent Traces" is a delightfully obsessive piece of
> artistic detective work. It's an aggressive act of deconstruction,
> performed in such a loving, relentless, mindful way - no theory, only
> practice - that it would make the ghost of Jacques Derrida weep with
> pleasure.
>
> Bengtson has gone through 43 of Charlie Chaplin's movies made between
> 1914 and 1940 and figured out where he shot nearly every exterior
> location. Where possible, he has found contemporary photographs to show
> what the locations looked like when put to their daily use and current
> photographs to show how they look now. There are also maps, diagrams,
> stills and images from various archives to flesh things out. His text
> walks you through Chaplin's career, Hollywood geography and
> architecture and city planning, and Bengtson's own 2005-era detective
> work.
>
> For instance, Page 178 gives us a frame from the famous 1918 "Shoulder
> Arms" sequence in which Chaplin, disguised as a tree, runs from a
> German soldier and hides among other trees. Having seen this film, I
> had wondered where such a distinctive windbreak of eucalyptus trees was
> to be found. Bengtson has the answer, with a 1920 aerial shot of
> Beverly Hills and an arrow toward a Black Forest-sized stand of
> eucalyptus trees running parallel with Wilshire Boulevard, a.k.a. the
> battlefields of France.
>
> Turn the page and there's a breakdown of Chaplin's awful 1919 pastoral,
> "Sunnyside." This was shot during his first marriage in what looks like
> the middle of a rustic idyll. And yet the author compares a mountain
> range in one frame with the view from the intersection of California
> Street and Alameda Avenue in Burbank and finds a perfect match. In
> other words, he points out what we already knew: What was once farmland
> is now the NBC Studios.
>
> And so it goes, film after film, with distinctive skylines and rooftop
> advertisements and street signs circled like defense exhibits, belly to
> belly with real-life photographs of the same places, the before and
> after of an extreme makeover.
>
> I stand in awe, the way you might when encountering a model of Paris
> made of toothpicks. Which is limiting - obsession usually carries its
> own self-propelled meaning and then grinds to a halt. Though there's a
> treasure trove of previously unknown information about the silent-film
> era, the book does not pontificate much on, for instance, how its
> findings help us to understand Chaplin's art form. So why bother with
> this project, particularly when the author has already done a similar
> job with the films of Buster Keaton ("Silent Echoes")?
>
> The foreword by Kevin Brownlow suggests that the project can help us
> understand early Hollywood history. Which is true. It's startling to
> read, for instance, about the destruction of old Chinatown (where
> Chaplin frequently shot). But there's more to it.
>
> Many students of film first encounter the phrase "diegetic effect" in
> Noel Burch's "To the Distant Observer," a study of Japanese cinema. It
> refers to the process by which art ceases to be brush strokes, words on
> a page or sequential camera angles and becomes instead, through the
> psychological machination of our perceptions, a reflection of reality.
> When we watch a movie that we like, we are absorbed in the story,
> accepting close-ups, dissolves, cuts and pans without being jolted
> "awake."
>
> Unless you live in Los Angeles. Because should you go see a
> tear-jerker, in the midst of a painful goodbye scene, you might just
> hear someone in the audience whispering, "That's my house in the
> background!" Our paradise carries some interesting narrative baggage,
> and simply seeing a certain vista in the right light can pop the
> process of absorption like a water balloon. Bengtson's work is a daring
> finger in the diegetic eye, asking everyone, Angeleno and otherwise, to
> stop looking at the story and instead pay attention to trolley tracks,
> reflections in windows, signs of exterior life.
>
> When Chaplin shot films here, they were universal tales as resonant to
> a Ceylonese laborer as to a member of the Duma. Simultaneously, they
> were staged against a landscape that stood in for the Lambeth section
> of London, where Chaplin spent his abominable childhood. Because of
> that, there is something of dream logic in trying to determine what
> identity a building actually has. Take "The Fireman," shot at Lillian
> Way and Eleanor Avenue in 1916. The sets were at the studio, but the
> fire station was a real fire station, No. 29, which Bengtson has
> located on South Western Avenue. The top floor is now a carpet store,
> and the ground floor is a Korean bridal shop.
>
> This is architectural layering. Anywhere else on earth, that phrase
> refers to how newer buildings grow up among old ones, how places are
> half torn down and reconstructed, so that a skyline is never from one
> era but carries with it the partly-corrupted memories of previous
> incarnations. Los Angeles is a special place, however, in that its
> buildings are also layered among the cradles of fantasy and speculation
> for the rest of the planet. So a fire station is a real fire station,
> but it's also a farcical South London fire station, and a universal one
> and a bridal shop. Obviously, the least real identity is the one that
> Chaplin assigned it for a day or so 90 years ago.
>
> And yet the red brick building ages, it's remodeled, people who
> remember its original use die, and one day it will no longer be a
> bridal shop, but still, because ars longa, it's always going to be a
> fake fire station. The architecture has become part of a communal
> dream, and we are absorbed before we know we're participating.
>
> "Silent Traces" is a fascinating study of the ephemeral and the lasting
> image and how those things can swap places without it even being
> perceived.
>
>
> copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

"Deconstruction" is just critical jive for "analysis," though it often has
the connotation of "demystificaiton." The latter doesn't apply in this
case.

"Deigetic effect" is more or less explained in the article. "Diegesis" is
a sometimes useful term which refers to both the content and techniques of
a narrative. This has sometimes been called "storytelling magic," but
"diegesis" sounds more scientific. ;-)

Occasional jargon aside, this is an interesting response to the book. However,
I think the book has more to say about how Chaplin made films than the reviewer
recognizes.

First of all, though its treatment of the subject is by no means complete, it
indicates how often Chaplin did film on location, and how skillfully actual
sites were blended with sets. Less obviously but just as importantly, it
documents how elaborately sequences which flash by in a matter of seconds
were created, and how much they involved the imaginative shaping and
manipulation of actual scenes and objects to create a convincing fictitous
world. Chaplin does this so well that it is virtually invisible,but this
book makes it impossible to ignore.

The book may disrupt the "diegetic effect" to some extent, but it also
reveals a great deal about how it was created.

Connie K.



(John@SilentEchoes.net) writes:
> To be honest I have never heard of Jacques Derrida's
> "deconstruction" or Noel Burch's "diegetic effect," but
> apparently my book is full of it : )
>
> John Bengtson
>
> Richard Carnahan wrote:
>> Silent Traces Discovering Early Hollywood Through the Films of Charlie
>> Chaplin John Bengtson Santa Monica Press: 304 pp., $24.95
>>
>> By Glen David Gold, Glen David Gold is the author of the novel "Carter
>> Beats the Devil." His new novel will look at Hollywood during World War
>> I.
>>
>>
>> JOHN BENGTSON'S "Silent Traces" is a delightfully obsessive piece of
>> artistic detective work. It's an aggressive act of deconstruction,
>> performed in such a loving, relentless, mindful way - no theory, only
>> practice - that it would make the ghost of Jacques Derrida weep with
>> pleasure.
>>
>> Bengtson has gone through 43 of Charlie Chaplin's movies made between
>> 1914 and 1940 and figured out where he shot nearly every exterior
>> location. Where possible, he has found contemporary photographs to show
>> what the locations looked like when put to their daily use and current
>> photographs to show how they look now. There are also maps, diagrams,
>> stills and images from various archives to flesh things out. His text
>> walks you through Chaplin's career, Hollywood geography and
>> architecture and city planning, and Bengtson's own 2005-era detective
>> work.
>>
>> For instance, Page 178 gives us a frame from the famous 1918 "Shoulder
>> Arms" sequence in which Chaplin, disguised as a tree, runs from a
>> German soldier and hides among other trees. Having seen this film, I
>> had wondered where such a distinctive windbreak of eucalyptus trees was
>> to be found. Bengtson has the answer, with a 1920 aerial shot of
>> Beverly Hills and an arrow toward a Black Forest-sized stand of
>> eucalyptus trees running parallel with Wilshire Boulevard, a.k.a. the
>> battlefields of France.
>>
>> Turn the page and there's a breakdown of Chaplin's awful 1919 pastoral,
>> "Sunnyside." This was shot during his first marriage in what looks like
>> the middle of a rustic idyll. And yet the author compares a mountain
>> range in one frame with the view from the intersection of California
>> Street and Alameda Avenue in Burbank and finds a perfect match. In
>> other words, he points out what we already knew: What was once farmland
>> is now the NBC Studios.
>>
>> And so it goes, film after film, with distinctive skylines and rooftop
>> advertisements and street signs circled like defense exhibits, belly to
>> belly with real-life photographs of the same places, the before and
>> after of an extreme makeover.
>>
>> I stand in awe, the way you might when encountering a model of Paris
>> made of toothpicks. Which is limiting - obsession usually carries its
>> own self-propelled meaning and then grinds to a halt. Though there's a
>> treasure trove of previously unknown information about the silent-film
>> era, the book does not pontificate much on, for instance, how its
>> findings help us to understand Chaplin's art form. So why bother with
>> this project, particularly when the author has already done a similar
>> job with the films of Buster Keaton ("Silent Echoes")?
>>
>> The foreword by Kevin Brownlow suggests that the project can help us
>> understand early Hollywood history. Which is true. It's startling to
>> read, for instance, about the destruction of old Chinatown (where
>> Chaplin frequently shot). But there's more to it.
>>
>> Many students of film first encounter the phrase "diegetic effect" in
>> Noel Burch's "To the Distant Observer," a study of Japanese cinema. It
>> refers to the process by which art ceases to be brush strokes, words on
>> a page or sequential camera angles and becomes instead, through the
>> psychological machination of our perceptions, a reflection of reality.
>> When we watch a movie that we like, we are absorbed in the story,
>> accepting close-ups, dissolves, cuts and pans without being jolted
>> "awake."
>>
>> Unless you live in Los Angeles. Because should you go see a
>> tear-jerker, in the midst of a painful goodbye scene, you might just
>> hear someone in the audience whispering, "That's my house in the
>> background!" Our paradise carries some interesting narrative baggage,
>> and simply seeing a certain vista in the right light can pop the
>> process of absorption like a water balloon. Bengtson's work is a daring
>> finger in the diegetic eye, asking everyone, Angeleno and otherwise, to
>> stop looking at the story and instead pay attention to trolley tracks,
>> reflections in windows, signs of exterior life.
>>
>> When Chaplin shot films here, they were universal tales as resonant to
>> a Ceylonese laborer as to a member of the Duma. Simultaneously, they
>> were staged against a landscape that stood in for the Lambeth section
>> of London, where Chaplin spent his abominable childhood. Because of
>> that, there is something of dream logic in trying to determine what
>> identity a building actually has. Take "The Fireman," shot at Lillian
>> Way and Eleanor Avenue in 1916. The sets were at the studio, but the
>> fire station was a real fire station, No. 29, which Bengtson has
>> located on South Western Avenue. The top floor is now a carpet store,
>> and the ground floor is a Korean bridal shop.
>>
>> This is architectural layering. Anywhere else on earth, that phrase
>> refers to how newer buildings grow up among old ones, how places are
>> half torn down and reconstructed, so that a skyline is never from one
>> era but carries with it the partly-corrupted memories of previous
>> incarnations. Los Angeles is a special place, however, in that its
>> buildings are also layered among the cradles of fantasy and speculation
>> for the rest of the planet. So a fire station is a real fire station,
>> but it's also a farcical South London fire station, and a universal one
>> and a bridal shop. Obviously, the least real identity is the one that
>> Chaplin assigned it for a day or so 90 years ago.
>>
>> And yet the red brick building ages, it's remodeled, people who
>> remember its original use die, and one day it will no longer be a
>> bridal shop, but still, because ars longa, it's always going to be a
>> fake fire station. The architecture has become part of a communal
>> dream, and we are absorbed before we know we're participating.
>>
>> "Silent Traces" is a fascinating study of the ephemeral and the lasting
>> image and how those things can swap places without it even being
>> perceived.
>>
>>
>> copyright 2006 Los Angeles Times
>
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

> Chaplin did film on location, and how skillfully actual
> sites were blended with sets. Less obviously but just as importantly, it
> documents how elaborately sequences which flash by in a matter of seconds
> were created, and how much they involved the imaginative shaping and
> manipulation of actual scenes and objects to create a convincing fictitous
> world. Chaplin does this so well that it is virtually invisible,but this
> book makes it impossible to ignore.


In those days nearly all exterior films that came out of Califonria were set
on location.

It is not unique to Chaplin.

Darren
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

"Darren" (dnemeth01@charter.net) writes:
>> Chaplin did film on location, and how skillfully actual
>> sites were blended with sets. Less obviously but just as importantly, it
>> documents how elaborately sequences which flash by in a matter of seconds
>> were created, and how much they involved the imaginative shaping and
>> manipulation of actual scenes and objects to create a convincing fictitous
>> world. Chaplin does this so well that it is virtually invisible,but this
>> book makes it impossible to ignore.
>
>
> In those days nearly all exterior films that came out of Califonria were set
> on location.
>
> It is not unique to Chaplin.
>
> Darrn

Of course not. But there's shooting on location and shooting on
location. There's an obvious difference between going to a soap
box race and improvising, which is just opportunistic, and
setting up complex sequences like the rooftop rescue in _The
Kid_. This book gives a hint of the effort and skill involved,
which is not something that's evident when watching the film.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

On 16 Oct 2006 05:52:26 GMT, do481.DeleteThis@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Constance
Kuriyama) wrote:

>"Darren" (dnemeth01@charter.net) writes:
>>> Chaplin did film on location, and how skillfully actual
>>> sites were blended with sets. Less obviously but just as importantly, it
>>> documents how elaborately sequences which flash by in a matter of seconds
>>> were created, and how much they involved the imaginative shaping and
>>> manipulation of actual scenes and objects to create a convincing fictitous
>>> world. Chaplin does this so well that it is virtually invisible,but this
>>> book makes it impossible to ignore.
>>
>>
>> In those days nearly all exterior films that came out of Califonria were set
>> on location.
>>
>> It is not unique to Chaplin.
>>
>> Darrn
>
>Of course not. But there's shooting on location and shooting on
>location. There's an obvious difference between going to a soap
>box race and improvising, which is just opportunistic, and
>setting up complex sequences like the rooftop rescue in _The
>Kid_. This book gives a hint of the effort and skill involved,
>which is not something that's evident when watching the film.
>
>Connie K.

I don't think Chaplin was doing anything any differently or any better
than anyone else at the time for location shooting. As far as complex
sequences like the rooftop, well, that was, what, about four shots?--
not very complex, is it? And I'd hold up any Keaton or Lloyd location
work as consistently equal or lightyears beyond what Chaplin was
doing. He certainly wasn't putting in the "effort and skill" that they
did. Don't get me wrong, I love Chaplin but I think his location work
is one of very very few things that aren't anything special when
compared to what others were doing.

Fred
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

Fred (fwtep@hotmailx.com) writes:
> On 16 Oct 2006 05:52:26 GMT, do481.DeleteThis@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Constance
> Kuriyama) wrote:
>
>>"Darren" (dnemeth01@charter.net) writes:
>>>> Chaplin did film on location, and how skillfully actual
>>>> sites were blended with sets. Less obviously but just as importantly, it
>>>> documents how elaborately sequences which flash by in a matter of seconds
>>>> were created, and how much they involved the imaginative shaping and
>>>> manipulation of actual scenes and objects to create a convincing fictitous
>>>> world. Chaplin does this so well that it is virtually invisible,but this
>>>> book makes it impossible to ignore.
>>>
>>>
>>> In those days nearly all exterior films that came out of Califonria were set
>>> on location.
>>>
>>> It is not unique to Chaplin.
>>>
>>> Darrn
>>
>>Of course not. But there's shooting on location and shooting on
>>location. There's an obvious difference between going to a soap
>>box race and improvising, which is just opportunistic, and
>>setting up complex sequences like the rooftop rescue in _The
>>Kid_. This book gives a hint of the effort and skill involved,
>>which is not something that's evident when watching the film.
>>
>>Connie K.
>
> I don't think Chaplin was doing anything any differently or any better
> than anyone else at the time for location shooting. As far as complex
> sequences like the rooftop, well, that was, what, about four shots?--
> not very complex, is it? And I'd hold up any Keaton or Lloyd location
> work as consistently equal or lightyears beyond what Chaplin was
> doing. He certainly wasn't putting in the "effort and skill" that they
> did. Don't get me wrong, I love Chaplin but I think his location work
> is one of very very few things that aren't anything special when
> compared to what others were doing.
>
> Fred

I haven't actually counted the shots, but every one of them is carefully
planned and set up so that the sequence seems perfectly natural--so
natural, in fact, that it won't stand out as anyything special. That's
one concept of art, and it isn't particularly simple or easy to achieve.
It just looks like it, until you get a hint of the effort involved. Doing
a spectacular sequence of a train dropping from burning bridge into a
river is another approach. As far as I can see it also required
careful planning, and was considerably more expensive, but the camera
setup (there's only one, as I recall) is nothing special, either. It's
just extremely well placed.

I didn't say that Chaplin did anything differently, by the way, or that
his location shooting was better than anyone else's. But I will say that
he does what he does with locations extremely well.

Both Keaton and lloyd go for big effects--spectacular chase sequences
with elaborate props,

Chaplin, as one of my students commented, "just runs." But just
running can be surprisingly interesting. It all depends on how it's done,
and also how it's photographed.

Connie K.
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

On 18 Oct 2006 04:34:17 GMT, do481 RemoveThis @FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Constance
Kuriyama) wrote:


>I haven't actually counted the shots, but every one of them is carefully
>planned and set up so that the sequence seems perfectly natural--so
>natural, in fact, that it won't stand out as anyything special. That's
>one concept of art, and it isn't particularly simple or easy to achieve.
>It just looks like it, until you get a hint of the effort involved. Doing
>a spectacular sequence of a train dropping from burning bridge into a
>river is another approach. As far as I can see it also required
>careful planning, and was considerably more expensive, but the camera
>setup (there's only one, as I recall) is nothing special, either. It's
>just extremely well placed.

First of all, are you trying to imply that Chaplin was more careful
than the others? That there was no careful planning, say, on a Keaton
film? You can try as hard as you like, but the race across the
rooftop is nothing special in terms of anything other than a plot
point. It was not any more planned or well shot or well integrated
than any location work on any other major film.

As for burning bridges and other big things like that in Keaton films,
I guess if that's all you take away from his films that means all of
his other location work is so perfectly natural that it doesn't stand
out as anything special. ;-) Keaton made entire films on location.
He also made films, like Chaplin, that mixed locations and studio
work. I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to think or imply that
Chaplin deserves any more kudos than anyone else. Laurel and Hardy,
to name a couple more, were also no slouches when it came to location
work.
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

On 18 Oct 2006 04:34:17 GMT, do481 RemoveThis @FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Constance
Kuriyama) wrote:

>every one of them is carefully
>planned and set up so that the sequence seems perfectly natural--so
>natural, in fact, that it won't stand out as anyything special.

One more thing. That type of response is a real cheat. There's no
way anyone can win an argument (or have a meaningful conversation) if
you're using tactics like that. If I say "Keaton had big exciting
location work," then you'd say "well, see, Chaplin was better because
he used it subtly." But if, instead, I said "Keaton used locations
subtly and very matter-of-factly," you'd say, "Chaplin was more
artistic because he used the very obviousness of his location work as
a stark contrast against his studio work."

So tell me, which is the sign of the true artist, making it obvious or
making it subtle?
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George Shelps wrote:
> fwtep.TakeThisOut@hotmailx.com (Fred)
> wrote:
>
> >do481@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
> >(Constance Kuriyama) wrote:
>
> >>every one of them is carefully
> >>planned and set up so that the
> >>sequence seems perfectly natural--so
> >>natural, in fact, that it won't stand out
> >>as anyything special.
>
> >One more thing. That type of response is
> >a real cheat. There's no way anyone can
> >win an argument (or have a meaningful
> >conversation) if you're using tactics like
> >that.
>
> Dr K often uses "tactics like that" when
> discussing Chaplin. If Chaplin uses a
> pedestrian camera angle or composition,
> she will invariably trumpet that this shows
> how subtle and natural Chsplin's technque was.
>
> As an experienced Kuriyama vet,I've been reading this thread, knowing
> that sooner or later the "real cheat"
> will pop up, killing meaningful discussion.

And sure enough, you just did.
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fwtep RemoveThis @hotmailx.com (Fred)
wrote:

>do481@FreeNet.Carleton.CA
>(Constance Kuriyama) wrote:

>>every one of them is carefully
>>planned and set up so that the
>>sequence seems perfectly natural--so
>>natural, in fact, that it won't stand out
>>as anyything special.

>One more thing. That type of response is
>a real cheat. There's no way anyone can
>win an argument (or have a meaningful
>conversation) if you're using tactics like
>that.

Dr K often uses "tactics like that" when
discussing Chaplin. If Chaplin uses a
pedestrian camera angle or composition,
she will invariably trumpet that this shows
how subtle and natural Chsplin's technque was.

As an experienced Kuriyama vet,I've been reading this thread, knowing
that sooner or later the "real cheat"
will pop up, killing meaningful discussion.
 >> Stay informed about: New Chaplin "Silent Traces" Book 

Fred wrote:
> First of all, are you trying to imply that Chaplin was more careful
> than the others? That there was no careful planning, say, on a Keaton
> film?

Relax, Fred. Connie wrote, "I didn't say that Chaplin did anything
differently, by the way, or that his location shooting was better than
anyone else's."



> You can try as hard as you like, but the race across the
> rooftop is nothing special in terms of anything other than a plot
> point. It was not any more planned or well shot or well integrated
> than any location work on any other major film.

Well, I would disagree with that. I think it's one of the most
effective scenes Chaplin ever did. It's one of the most effective
scenes *anyone* ever did. In my opinion, it's put together beautifully,
with shots of Charlie scrambling in the foreground and the truck
rumbling away in the background, the sharply pitched rooftops conveying
a greater sense of danger, and the selection of shots bringing together
different real-world locations into one fictional location.

These locations were evidently selected carefully, and they worked
very well for the sequence.

From what I've seen in SILENT TRACES and elsewhere, Chaplin was
usually very picky about the locations he chose. Now we can argue over
whether his selections were particularly effective or not, but
certainly they were carefully chosen. David Totheroh has observed that
Chaplin loved to make use of T-intersections, and there's one in A
JITNEY ELOPEMENT which must've taken some hunting to find, because San
Francisco has very few of them around Golden Gate Park. Other JITNEY
locations are at least a mile from there, at the opposite end of the
Park. The Pasadena bridge seen briefly in THE KID must have been over
an hour's drive from the studio in those pre-freeway days. The
locations seen at the close of MODERN TIMES, and the mountainslope
exteriors of THE GOLD RUSH, were (and are) way, way off the beaten
path.

Again, I'm not arguing that Chaplin's choices were more brilliant
than anyone else's, but he generally went to some trouble to find ones
that seemed right to him. Like everything else in his films, he was
picky about the location work.



--Shush--
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