Word: chaplinitis
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...side," Henry says. "I thought, 'That's the way to do it-intimacy.' " To get Flip closer to the audience, Henry created a theater-in-the-round and placed emphasis on full-body camera shots. "The head-to-toe selling was important," he observes. "What Chaplin's legs were to him, Flip's body is to his program...
...only is the film a mixture of sentiment and politics, but also a mixture of silent and sound. One large gag based on sound--gurgling stomachs embarrassed Chaplin and a minister's wife when they are forced into close quarters--falls on its face. Chaplin's use of the camera is downright unimaginative, as are the sets. The one famous exception is the factory, and its expressionistic construction of cogs upon cogs and wheels within wheels. When the factory worker slides headlong down the conveyor belt into the bowels of the factory, the image of a human being slithering through...
...real secret of the movie's appeal now lies in its confrontation and revelation of Chaplin's self. It should more properly be titled My Times than Modern Times, for it's nothing less than a disguised autobiography of Chaplin the slumdweller child from London who finds himself confronted with the appalling luxury of America. The music hall entertainer, who arrived along with a troupe called the "Wow-Wows," found himself surrounded with fame and riches, but remained a loner. Chaplin poetically objectifies his situation in the image of a tramp night-watchman in a department store. All the luxuries...
...context of the rags to riches Cinderella theme, Chaplin also deals with his artistic personality. When the beleaguered factory worker finally breaks down, he does not collapse, but dances a ballet-mime. And near the end of the film, when Chaplin must sing before a crowd and loses his words he improvises a song much better than the original. In each case, Chaplin arrives at a moment of extreme tension and reacts not by anger, but by artistic creation--a rather extraordinary effort at transcendence. And in the image of the singing waiter, Chaplin confronts the threat of the talkies...
...film deals with much more provocative material than it possibly can cover in an hour and a half. The depression, socialist labor movements, a consumer oriented society, Chaplin's life, Paulette Goddarde--Modern Times covers all this ground, but as a newsreel might, quickly, and superficially. Certain images remain provocative, certain moments captivating, but the variety of subject matter indicates that the film is a transition from the sentimental to the political, and so leaves the audience at once satisfied and perplexed...