When The Artist
received all of the attention that it did a few years ago, winning five Academy
Awards that included Best Picture, I must admit that I was a bit dismayed.
Critical praise was to be expected, because the film is an artistic homage to
silent cinema. It is also a film about Hollywood
Click HERE for our review of The Artist Blu-ray.
Director Michel
Hazanavicius is not the first to make a silent film after the arrival of sound.
In 1976, Mel Brooks released Silent Movie, which is more satiric in nature
while also relying on an appreciation of silent comedy. As was the case with
The Artist, there is some dialogue in Silent Movie. The one line (in fact, one
word) of spoken dialogue is given by Marcel Marceau, a renowned mime who usually performs without speaking.
These films
impress me for their attempt to return to silent cinema long after it has died,
even though they are only doing it for artistic nuance. The Artist uses it to
be both subversive and vintage, explaining the popularity this film had with
the hipsters of the world, and Silent Movie lovingly spoofs the beloved silent
films and stars. What are truly impressive are the silent films that Charles
Chaplin made after 1928.
In the last desert island list for classic musicals, I recalled the sequence in Singin’ in the Rain which recreates the
sudden phenomenon created by The Jazz
Singer in 1927. It is no coincidence that the last silent film to win Best
Picture (until The Artist in 2012) was Wings in 1927. The Jazz Singer changed
everything, and studios quickly adapted to the changing medium because it was
what audiences demanded. By 1928 there was a ‘talkie’ Best Picture winner (The
Broadway Melody), and yet Charlie Chaplin continued to make silent films all
the way into the 1930s. He produced two of his greatest masterpieces while
everyone else had abandoned the old-fashioned methods of filmmaking, including
City Lights (1931) and Modern Times (1936).
It is no secret
that I am a lifelong Chaplin fan, which explains the fact that he dominates
this list. I could easily have done this list purely for Chaplin films and
included a few more favorites, but my inspiration for this list was the recent
Blu-ray release of Safety Last! I also see no way of making this list without
including The General, despite claims that it is impossible to be both a fan of
Buster Keaton and Chaplin. Keaton, Chaplin and Harold Lloyd may all use
different approaches to the material and each have their unique personas built
up, but all make use of a physical comedy that is often attributed to vaudeville.
I think it is much simpler than that, and the origins of screen humor can be
traced back to one of the first films ever made.
The Lumiére
Brothers, Auguste and Louis, are attributed with being the first filmmakers.
They are a unique pair, both able to patent advancements on the creation of
devices for filmmaking and to have the creativity of making the world’s first
moving pictures and present them for public viewing at the Grand Café in 1895.
The very first one is rather dull, including only 46 seconds of factory workers
as they exit the Lumiére factory, but the creation of the second film also
brought the birth of onscreen comedy.
Le Jardinier
(The Gardner) was the second Lumiere film screened. Also known as l’Arroseur
Arrosé (The Sprinkler Sprinkled), the film is just under 50 seconds and
features one gag. A gardener is tormented by a young boy who steps on his hose
to cut off the water supply. When the gardener looks into the nozzle of the
hose, the boy releases the water and it squirts the man, who reacts by spanking
the boy. This film was the beginning of narrative cinema, and also started off
cinematic comedy with a bit of slapstick that would become a staple for the
trio of great silent stars on this list.
5. The Gold Rush (1925)
[Excerpt below taken from review of Criterion Collection Blu-ray]
Chaplin’s reoccurring character known
as the Little Tramp had been around in his silent short films, but it was The Gold Rush which made him a
phenomenal success. From the signature waddling walk in his over-sized shoes
and pants to the undersized jacket and iconic bowler and walking cane, the
Little Tramp is unmistakably recognizable. The
Gold Rush has sequences which are just as recognizable, even to those who
have never seen the film before. There is the dinner roll dance, which was
imitated in the 1990s romantic comedy Benny
& Joon, and the boiled leather shoe meal which actually put Chaplin in
the hospital for insulin shock (the shoe was made out of licorice). The Gold Rush is a goldmine of
unforgettable comedic moments.
The story was
actually one of the few that Chaplin had completely figured out prior to the
beginning of filming, and has a consistency that is lacking in some of his
other masterpieces. It begins with the tale of a poor prospector with hopes of
striking it rich in the Klondike . The Tramp’s
search for gold also ends up bringing him to a search for a companion when he
meets a beautiful woman (played by Georgia Hale), and in typical fashion he
must ward off the romantic competition with wit and mischievous trickery.
Slapstick humor
and amazingly creative comedy aside, The
Gold Rush is also an extremely sweet and emotional film. The Tramp is one
of those rare characters who can misbehave in the name of what is right,
drawing our affection and admiration along with the laughter. The Gold Rush would pave the way for
more masterpieces, though there is no denying that they would not have been
possible without the initial success of this near-perfect film. In 1942 he even
re-released a new version of his 1925 classic with sound effects and a
voiceover narration to replace the original dialogue cards. Whether watching the
1925 classic silent version or the 1942 re-release, there is no denying the
brilliance of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold
Rush. Both are masterpieces which have just as much impact to day as when
they were first created.
4. The General (1926)
It has been said
that you can be a Charlie Chaplin fan or you can be Buster Keaton fan, but you
can’t be both. I’ll admit that I feel far less sentiment for the deadpan comedy
styles of Buster Keaton, and prefer the vaudevillian methods of Chaplin, but
The General is proof for me that it is possible to like both these actors.
Keaton himself has named this as his favorite of his own films, and it is easy
to see why. The humor is spectacular and the scope of the film is monumental
for a comedy, especially one about the Civil War. The train crash sequence was
the single most expensive shot in the entire silent movie era.
Based on a true incident during the Civil War,
with remarkable abilities to stay close to the facts while still remaining
hilarious, The General follows the
exploits of locomotive engineer Johnnie Gray (Keaton), a man whose train is
stolen by a group of Union spies on a task to sabotage the railway. Gray takes
it upon himself to pursue his locomotive, The General, at any cost. Starting on
foot, Gray slowly moves up in modes of transportation, until taking a train
backwards the remaining distance to his beloved locomotive.
3. Safety Last! (1923)
[Excerpt below taken from review of Criterion Collection Blu-ray]
Harold Lloyd may
not be as recognizable a name as Charlie Chaplin, and his face less familiar
than the droopy-eyed deadpan expression of Buster Keaton, but his comedy is
every bit as timeless. Safety Last!
(1923) is to Lloyd what The Gold Rush
was to Chaplin and The General to
Keaton. Containing some of his most recognizable bits, including many which
were borrowed by Johnny Depp’s film-obsessed character in Benny & June, Safety
Last! is a perfect presentation of Lloyd’s unique comedy style. It is easy
to see why these three comedy giants are often lumped together in comparison;
each using a similar style of humor which is drastically altered with the
unique personality each brings to the material.
In Safety Last! Lloyd plays a small-town
boy in love with a small-town girl, who gladly sends her man away in hopes that
he becomes rich in the big city. The boy is employed as a lowly department
store clerk, but he writes letters home boasting of a greater position in order
to impress his bride-to-be. These lies come back to bite the boy when his beloved
arrives for a surprise visit. When she has a look of horror and sadness at the
sight of him as a clerk, the boy finds clever ways to continue his lies. This
helps his situation temporarily, but a permanent solution arrives when the head
of the department store agrees to pay a large sum for a dramatic publicity
stunt to draw a crowd to the store.
This publicity
stunt is meant to be carried out by the boy’s roommate, who is able to scale
the side of buildings with ease. When a mishap occurs and the roommate is
unable to climb, the boy is forced to go in his place. This stunt results in
the film’s best comedy, including the iconic image of Lloyd hanging from a
clock, which Jackie Chan imitated in Project A. Chan has stated Lloyd as an
inspiration for much of his work, which is easily noticeable despite the fact
that he makes martial arts films. As we all know from the blooper reels during
the credits of his films, Chan does his own stunts, as did Lloyd. Even more
incredible than the climbing Lloyd does in Safety
Last! is the fact that he did it missing several fingers. The fingers were
blown off in a promotional accident, ironically, and Lloyd wore a glove to hide
the impairment. Watching to see the way he favors his left hand while climbing
is a fun activity for repeat viewers. I always try, but usually get too
distracted by the film itself and find myself lost in cinematic heaven.
2. The Kid (1921)
The film Charlie
Chaplin is best known for is undoubtedly The
Gold Rush, but I have always preferred the small-scale sentimentality of
Chaplin’s first 6-reel feature with The Tramp. The vagabond prankster had
already lived in one and two-reel films for quite some time, but Chaplin spent
a year creating the first feature, The
Kid.
Showing both the
mischievous side of The Tramp paired with his sweet innocent instincts, The Kid
follows a poor vagabond who takes in an abandoned child as his own. Years
later, the child (Jackie Coogan) is in danger of being taken from The Tramp and
the life that they have known together. The
Kid has all of the usual Tramp hijinks escaping from the grip of local
authority figures, especially police officers, but Chaplin was able to add a
new level of emotion and heart-tugging sentimentality with the extra time of a
feature film.
1. City Lights (1931)
When I first
discovered Chaplin, around the age of 10 or 11, The Kid was my favorite film. After falling in love a few times, City Lights quickly became my new
favorite. Any time I feel myself growing more cynical; this is one of the films
I know I can put on in order to break down those barriers. Comedy and melodrama
have never been paired so perfectly, both effective in their own way and
blending to make a masterpiece of a film about the sacrifices of true love.
This was the first
silent film that Chaplin made after the arrival of sound, and it took him three
years of production in order to complete it. There was heavy encouragement to
make the film in sound, which must have felt even more urgent the longer
Chaplin took to complete it. The more years spent making this film meant more
years gone since silent films were successfully dominant, or even present. And
yet, this film saw incredible success, even pulling Albert Einstein to the
theater for the premiere.
The film is a simple
love story with heartbreaking twists and turns. At the heart of the film is The
Tramp, who falls in love with a blind flower girl (Virginia Cherrill) and
decides to do everything in his power to help her. He loves her in such a
selfless way that it doesn’t even matter to him if he gets credit for what he
does to improve her life, and that is what makes this film so spectacularly
romantic.
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