3. Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin was
born on 16th
April 1889 at
Walworth, London.
He died on Christmas Day, 25th
Dec.
1977 at Vevey, Switzerland in
his sleep at the age of 88.
4. Sir Charles Chaplin was
considered as one of the finest
mimes and a noted director. He
acted, directed, scripted,
produced and even scored his own
movies. His best known character,
The Tramp, was a vagrant with
refined manners. His signature
toothbrush moustache was his
trademark. In his earliest films
he developed Tramp character
which was first presented
publicly in second film "Kid Auto
Race at Venice," released on
February 7, 1914.
5. Chaplin was one of the
most creative and
influential personalities
of the silent-film era.
His working life in
entertainment spanned
over 75 years, from the
Victorian stage and the
Music Hall in the United
Kingdom as a child
performer almost until
his death. His high-
profile public and
private life encompassed
both adulation and
controversy.
6. In a review of the 2008 book
Chaplin: A Life, Martin Sieff
writes: "Chaplin was not just
'big', he was gigantic. In 1915, he
gave the gift of comedy, laughter
and relief to the world at the time
of World War. Over the next 25
years, through the Great Depression
and the rise of Hitler, he stayed
on the job. It is doubtful any
individual has ever given more
entertainment, pleasure and relief
to so many human beings when they
needed it the most. .
He was bigger than anybody…
7. Bronze Statue at Waterville,
County Kerry
As immigrant groups
arrived in waves to
America silent movies
were able to cross
all the barriers of
language, and spoke
to every level of the
American Tower of
Babel, precisely
because they were
silent. Chaplin was
emerging as the
supreme exponent of
silent movies, an
emigrant himself from
London.
8. Chaplin parents were both
entertainers in the music hall
tradition.
Early Life …
Chaplin’s father Charles
Spencer Chaplin Sr. was a
vocalist and an actor and his
mother, Hannah Chaplin, a
singer and an actress. They
separated before Charlie was
Three. He learned singing from
his parents. .
Chaplin’s father was an
alcoholic and had a little
contact with his son. His
father died of alcoholism when
Charlie was twelve in 1901.
9. Chaplin’s mother first crisis came in
1894 when she was performing at The
Canteen, a theatre in Aldershot. The
theatre was mainly frequented by
rioters and soldiers. She was badly
injured by the objects the audience
threw on her and she was booed off the
stage. Backstage she cried and argued
with her manager. Meanwhile, the five
year old Chaplin went on stage alone
and sang a well known tune at that
time, “Jack Jones”. .
His early years of desperate poverty
were a great influence on his
characters. His mother died in 1928 in
Hollywood.
10. Pioneering Film Artist …
Chaplin’s earliest films were made
for Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios,
where he developed his tramp
character and very quickly learned
the art and craft of Film making. The
public first saw the tramp when
Chaplin was of 24. Mack Sennett had
requested that Chaplin “get into a
comedy make-up”. As Chaplin recalled
in his autobiography: “I had no idea
what make-up to put on. I did not
like my get-up as the press reporter
(Making a Living).
However on the way to the wardrobe I
thought I would dress in baggy pants,
big shoes, a cane and a derby hat. I
wanted everything to be a
contradiction: the pants baggy, the
coat tight, the hat small and the shoes
large. I was undecided whether to look
old or young, but remembering Sennett
had expected me to be a much older man,
I added a small moustache, which I
reasoned, would add age without hiding
my expression. I had no idea of the
character. But the moment I was
dressed, the clothes and the makeup
made me feel the person he was. I began
to know him, and by the time I walked
on stage he was fully born."
11. Chaplin's films were also deliciously
subversive. The bumbling officials
enabled the immigrants to laugh at
those they feared. In 1916, the Mutual
Film Corporation paid Chaplin
US$670,000 to produce a dozen two-reel
comedies. He was given near complete
artistic control, and produced twelve
films over an eighteen-month period
that rank among the most influential
comedy films in cinema. Practically
every Mutual comedy is a classic: Easy
Street, One AM, The Pawnshop, and The
Adventurer are perhaps the best known.
12. Chaplin never spoke more than cursorily about
his filmmaking methods, claiming such a thing
would be tantamount to a magician spoiling his
own illusion. Chaplin's unique filmaking
techniques became known only after his death,
when his rare surviving outakes and cut
sequences were carefully examined in the 1983
British documentary Unknown Chaplin. This is
one reason why Chaplin took so much longer to
complete his films than did his rivals. In
addition, Chaplin was an incredibly exacting
director, showing his actors exactly how he
wanted them to perform and shooting scores of
takes until he had the shot he wanted.
(Animator Chuck Jones, who lived near Charlie
Chaplin's Lone Star studio as a boy,
remembered his father saying he watched
Chaplin shoot a scene more than a hundred
Film Making Techniques …
