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Charles Chaplin |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Producer / Actor / Editor / Composer |
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| 1889 - 1977 |
| Born April 16, Walworth, London,
England |
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Key
Production Country: USA |
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Key
Genres: Comedy, Slapstick, Short Film, Melodrama, Comedy Drama, Romantic Comedy, Romance |
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Key
Collaborators: Roland
Totheroh (Cinematographer), Henry Bergman (Leading Character Player),
Edna Purviance (Leading Player), Albert Austin (Leading
Character Player), Charles D. Hall (Production Designer), John Rand
(Character Player), Eric Campbell (Leading Character Player), Allan Garcia
(Leading Character Player),
Syd Chaplin (Leading Player), Henry P. Caulfield (Producer) |
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Highly
Recommended: The Circus (1928)*,
Modern
Times (1936)*, The Great Dictator (1940)*, Monsieur Verdoux (1947)* |
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Recommended: Easy Street (1917), The Immigrant (1917), Shoulder
Arms (1918), The Kid (1921)*, The Pilgrim (1923),
A Woman of Paris (1923)*, The
Gold Rush (1925)*, City Lights (1931)* |
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Worth a Look: One
A.M. (1916), The Pawnshop (1916), The Cure (1917), A Dog's Life (1918),
Limelight (1952)* |
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Approach with Caution:
His New Job (1915), A King in New York (1957), A Countess From Hong Kong
(1967) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section. |
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Links: [
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[
Charlie Chaplin.com ] [
The Time 100 ] [
American Masters ] [
Clown Ministry ] [
Charlie
Chaplin UK ] [
Hollywood Renegades ] [
The Golden Years'
Page ] [
Off Screen
Article (2006) ] [
Moving Image Source Article (2010)
] |
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Books: [
My
Autobiography ] [
Chaplin
and American Culture ] [
Charles
Chaplin ] [
Charlie
Chaplin: Interviews ] [
Charles Chaplin: An Appreciation ] [
My Father, Charlie Chaplin ] |
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"Best known as the 'the little
tramp', he drew on his childhood experiences of poverty and loss
to depict a quintessential underdog, a rather exquisite,
sentimentalised version of the Common Man eternally at odds with
the strong and the rich, the powerful and unjust...In 1972 he
received an honorary Oscar, followed three years later by a
knighthood. While the awards were in recognition of his genius,
he should be remembered less as a great film-maker than as the
man who was the first real icon of cinema. Chaplin's importance
lies in the way he embodied the movies' power to touch the
world."
-
Geoff Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989) |
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"Chaplin, British-born, and raised and Hollywood-sharpened,
offered the world an image - and was its own best salesman. As
an actual film director, he was not of the first rank, but as an
ideas man and a showcaser of his own talents, he was almost
without peer." -
David Quinlan (Quinlan's Film Directors,
1999) |
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"The apparent simplicity of
Chaplin's art should never be confused with lack of technique.
For Chaplin, his other self on the screen has always been the
supreme object of contemplation, and the style that logically
followed from this assumption represents the antithesis to
Eisenstein's
early formulations on montage." -
Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, 1968) |
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"Despite being a brilliant comic actor, Chaplin directed with a
simple, sometimes awkward style. Yet his career is loaded with
classics which are often as sentimental as they are funny.
Chaplin's social conscience, first revealed in the pathetic
wanderings of the Little Tramp, blossomed in the 1930s and 40s."
-
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog,
1978) |
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"All
my pictures are built around the idea of getting in trouble and
so giving me the chance to be desperately serious in my attempt
to appear as a normal little gentleman." -
Charles Chaplin |
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"I
do not have much patience with a thing of beauty that must be
explained to be understood. If it does need additional
interpretation by someone other than the creator, then I
question whether it has fulfilled its purpose." -
Charles Chaplin |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include Carmen (1916). |
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