Sunday, April 27, 2008

Silent Film Frenzy

I've watched four silent films this week - Chaplin's City Lights and Modern Times, Lubitsch's Marriage Circle and Murnau's Sunrise. It takes a certain frame of mind to get into them, but once adjusted the rewards abound. It's funny how the parodies of Chaplin capture his gestures only generally. You see so many imitations of Chaplin that it's easy to forget how great he was. His work is much more nuanced and truly is masterful.
When I've done a lot of takes people have jokingly called me Kubrick. Kubrick's got nothing on Chaplin who would routinely take a hundred times and once did over 300 for one of the shots in the Tramp meets the Flower Girl sequence in Modern Times.

¡Silencio!
Signore Direttore

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