When Chaplin became Chaplin

Jerald 2021-11-19 08:01:44

The story of the movie part 13

Finding Children and Encountering Fairy

The Kid (1921)

Charlie Chaplin

When we walked out of the icy world of "Nanuk in the North", midsummer was here. The temperature difference between inside and outside of the film was so big. We who experienced the courage and coolness in the film, returned to reality, we still have to be in the scorching sun. The next is sun shining.

The movie is like this. It opens a window for us. Sometimes you are moved and satisfied in the movie through its dream world, and when you turn to leave the movie, you will find that the real world is a loss-making world. To use Deleuze's words in "Time-Images", this is because the audience has become "a discerning person." This is not a compliment to the audience. What follows from him is: People have discovered something unbearable in the world in the video, and the relationship between people and the world (just) broke.

Deleuze's words are actually aimed at Hollywood commercial films. He believes that film is a mental automatic device that can stimulate and suppress thinking. And Hollywood commercial films often suppress the audience's thinking to make them lose their "subject identity", thereby controlling the audience. Cousins ​​created a not-short phrase for this kind of film in "The Story of Movies" called " closed romantic realism ".

▲Deleuze, a philosopher who has a huge influence on the film theory community

When we start to really talk about Hollywood movies, we are not talking about the most amorous, escapist, falsely romantic Hollywood movies. It’s about talking about this strictly controlled commercial assembly line. The few directors who have creative freedom and are good at using Hollywood’s professional technology make unconventional movies.

In the 1920s, several comedy directors enjoyed this autonomy within the Hollywood system. The most well-known of these was undoubtedly Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin may not only be the most well-known actor and director of comedy movies, he should be the most well-known and most loved by audiences in the history of movies.

It all started in 1921, in which he directed and starred in "Xun Zi Yu Xian Ji", even though he was already the most famous actor in the United States before that. "Looking for a Child and Encountering Fairy" is Chaplin's first true story, as the subtitles at the beginning of the movie said: "A story that can repay a smile and may also make people shed tears." And this story contains more certain compassion, humanitarianism and near-eternal kindness than in his past short films.

This fifty-minute story is very simple: the homeless man played by Chaplin picked up an abandoned baby, raised him to about 5 years old, and was forcibly transferred to an orphanage by the government agency. The homeless man tried his best to get the child back. Full force.

You can't appreciate Chaplin's comedy talent just by looking at the plot brief. A story based on poverty and suffering should shine with happiness, and to achieve a true and natural balance between sadness and joy, of course, it benefits from Chaplin's ingenious conception and performance. What is behind it is the director’s experience of poverty. Just as Truffaut said: There are many directors filming the poor in the world, but Chaplin is the only one who really suffers from starvation.

So when we see in the movie, Chaplin is in a small room and the poor have their own ways to do all the work done for babies and families: making kettles and pacifiers, nightgowns made from old blankets, and sitting on wooden benches. A part of it is hollowed out and turned into a toilet. There is witty humor in these scenes, bitterness and sadness, but also love and warm sun.

▲Inventor Chaplin, the blanket turned into a nightgown!

The small, dilapidated house where the father and son lived is said to be designed according to the room where Chaplin lived in London when he was a child. He also has the ability to make us consider the most clever evil in the movie: using coins to reverse the gas meter to steal gas, father and son go into battle, his son deliberately smashed the glass of other people's homes, and father rushed to pay to repair the windows. These scenes are angry and funny because there are real suffering in the details, but there is always absurdity and humor in the reality.

Today we are too familiar with Chaplin's improper dress and walking posture. Countless cottages of Chaplin in later generations tried to imitate him, but they were never able to match his genius and skills in the story. But talents all start from imitation, and then they begin to show. If you look for Chaplin's early short films and watch them one by one, you will once again identify with Gombrich's classic "paradigm plus transformation" model in The Story of Art.

The object of Chaplin's study is the pioneer of world comedy, the comedy star Max Lindy of EMI (or EMI, some regret that this plan was not selected in the early films of EMI). In the early days of Mike Senat’s Keystone company (Keystone), Chaplin’s image in the film was almost entirely learned from Linda. His image is also in constant experimentation and adjustment, until it is fixed in "Venice Children's Racing": a round hat on his head, a cane in hand, a worn and loose clothes, and a pair of oversized shoes on his feet.

▲A group photo of Chaplin (left) and Lin Dai (right)

American writer and film critic Walter Kerr has a particularly exquisite summary of this: "After some attempts, Chaplin found a way to show the'inside' through the'outside' . His whole body In his dress, he looks like a penniless tramp and an elegant gentleman. Chaplin uses his elegant and charming acting skills to give full play to this ambiguous double trait."

The clothing is derived from the improvement of Lin Dai, and the performance is to be repeatedly tempered on the cornerstone. Chaplin completed what Sadour called the "necessary improvisational comedy education" under Senat's command. Cousins ​​further described Senat’s influence on him: In a deeply infectious, neurotic, and rapidly changing new world... His posture of swinging a cane, and his ear-picking meditation look all from the cornerstone. The deep expression degenerated from the chaotic surface.

When Chaplin finished his studies and left the cornerstone, in fact, he was not only a skill, he was also the most gold-sucking star in the United States. In 1915, he was able to earn 10,000 US dollars a week, and a year later he increased to 100. Ten thousand dollars in remuneration. In 1919, he founded the United American Film Company together with three of the same famous movie characters, Beckford, Van Punk, and Griffith. At this time, his short film shooting speed began to slow down, and "The Dog's Life" was born. After the short film masterpieces such as "Coming to the Army" and "Pastoral Pastoral", Chaplin is going to reproduce the "Glory and Dreams" of his tramp in a larger length of time.

▲The cornerstone location in 1917, at this time Chaplin had already "graduated"

Before this in movie history, it is hard to say that there is a comedy movie that is more touching than "Searching for Children and Encountering Fairy". When Chaplin had more sufficient resources and great creative freedom, he still did not leave the production of such a comedy story about common people fighting in hardship, and this seemed to be a firm and convincing Chaplin. The moment to become Chaplin.

When we saw in the movie that a father and son who lived together day and night were forcibly separated by administrative means, Chaplin tried his best to cross the roofs of the city, chasing the two vehicles that transported his children, and at the same time, it can be said to be transporting us. With the vehicle looking forward to. Chaplin's skill like a hero, achieved a temporary rescue, but finally showed a sense of powerlessness in front of a much larger world. This moment was like the moment when he returned to the door of the house when he was exhausted, and was driven away from heaven after a short joy in the dream of sleeping by the door. This is a moment of tears, a dark moment after a happy time, a moment that hits the depths of the soul.

And this moment not only contains all the elements of Chaplin in the past, the ambiguous dress, which makes people can't help but also often contains embarrassment, charming elegance, but also flexible posture and skill. But it is precisely because of the more profound perceptions and emotions that have been added to the aforementioned , that we can borrow Paul Oster’s phrase "The Ballet of the Soul" to describe Chaplin’s "Looking for Children and Encountering Immortals." Great performance in the house.

▲The short joy of the successful moment of "Life and Death Rescue"

Before I wrote this article, I read it again immediately because I was not satisfied after reading it again. In addition to my past viewing experience, I have actually read "Xunzi En Xian Ji" many times. But the joy of watching movies has not been compromised by knowing the evolution of the plot in advance, because the happiness in the movie is convenient, and this is because each of Chaplin’s jokes is the result of careful thinking and trial and error. The principle is that every audience can understand. It is also because this is based on the refinement of reality. Happiness is dependent on a certain reality, and the back of happiness is true sadness. This makes us cherish and cherish this kind of happiness.

So I call "Finding Children and Encountering Immortals" the moment when Chaplin became "Chaplin", and it marked Chaplin's beginning to become the best "self". After watching the movie, looking through the books of Andre Bazin that are always on hand, Bazin’s praise of Chaplin’s movies has an incomparably moving interpretation. I will end it with the following transcript:

"A phenomenon that can explain the problem is that Chaplin's best films can be watched an unlimited number of times, and the fun increases unabated. It may be said that some gimmicks bring such a sense of satisfaction that they are inexhaustible. , but especially because of the comedy film aesthetics and value of nature has nothing to do with the sense of wonder sense of wonder will disappear after the first viewing, replaced by a much more delicate pleasure: a kind The perfect waiting and reunion".

Yes, reunion. Because in the next movie of Harold Lloyd, Chaplin's apprentice, we will definitely mention Chaplin as "Chaplin" again.

Section 3 World Expansion of Film Style (1918-1928)

1Dr. Caligari's cabin Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari (1920), Robert Winet

2 Nanook of the North (1922), Robert Flahadi

3 The Kid (1921), Charlie Chaplin

4Safety Last! (1923), Fred C. Neumayer/Sam Taylor

5 Holmes II Sherlock Jr. (1924), Buster Keaton

6 The White Rose of the Railway La Roue (1923), Abel Gance

7 Greed (1924), Eric von Strohheim

8 Battleship Potemkin Броненосец Потёмкин (1925), Sergey Eisenstein

9 Metropolis (1927), Fritz Lang

10 Sunrise (1927), F·W·Munau

11 The Crowd (1928), Kim Widow

12 The Story of Joan of Arc, La passion de Jeanne d'Arc (1928), Carl Dreyer

13 Arsenal Арсенал (1929), Alexander Dufrenko

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Extended Reading
  • Myron 2022-04-24 07:01:06

    "A picture with a smile - and perhaps, a tear."

  • Mattie 2022-03-25 09:01:08

    Chaplin's first feature film. A picture with a smile -and perhaps, a tear. Seeking the right balance between comedy and drama, it also marks the combination of drama and comedy - the birth of drama (Dramedy), where the story is told in comedy to make the audience Having an emotional connection with the character also allows you to explore some deep themes rather than just making jokes. The relationship between the outcast and the homeless is inspired by Chaplin's experience of the death of his three-day-old child, and the emotion conveyed by the film easily resonates with people. The child threw rocks at the glass, Chaplin repaired the glass casually, and the police followed him. It was a classic scene.

The Kid quotes

  • A Tramp: Awkward ass.

  • A Tramp: Put the quarter in the gas meter.